Rewatching "Porco Rosso"

To try and hold myself over until next weekend when I've promised myself that I can rewatch "Noir" again, I decided to rewatch Miyazaki's "Porco Rosso". When I first watched it back in March, I was quite smitten with it.

This time around I decided to play my word-association game, and I came up with an interesting one:

Love.

Every scene, every shot, every frame... is just overflowing with love: of the subject, of the characters, of the scenery, of the machines, of the story, of the medium of animation itself. The subject of flying, in particular, is so rapturously captured and lovingly exhaulted that you can't help but want to put yourself in the middle of the movie yourself. You can't help but share what must be Miyazaki's own love and wonder of it all.

Love of flying, love of honor, love of women, love of freedom; it's all there. And the details paint such an expansive picture without the need to clutter the story with extraneous backstory narrative; the little details in the background tell you enough about what to expect and why that world is the way that it is, and the details in the foreground say more than words ever need to.

I'm gushing a bit too much here, I guess. I suppose I could be forgiven on the merits of this movie, though. It's definitely "gush-worthy"!

EDIT: I actually just re-read my original review, and it looks like I came to a similar conclusion, only I was a little more terse about it. Go figure!