Whoa, started out strong.
Porco Rosso is the 7th place on my ballot. A masterpiece of animation pure and simple and essential viewing for any animation fan.
The first time I watched Porco Rosso I didn't think it was as great as Miyazaki other films. The reason was that it lacked the super impressive visuals of movies like Howls Moving Castly, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke and also the more complex storylines of movies like Nausicaa, instead it had this tired moralist platitudes of "fascism is bad". Also, the fact that the main character was an ugly pig man bugged me a little
But after re-watching it a couple of times I fell in love with it and now I regard it as one of my favorite movies ever. It is simply a masterpiece in visual storytelling and elegance, with an ambiguous ending that brought to my mind the ambiguous ending of Once Upon a Time in America.
Made by Miyazaki at the peak of his powers, this movie flows like water.
[center]I probably give
Porco Rosso . For what is essentially a children's movie,
Miyazaki actually said Porco Rosso was made for "tired middle-aged men". It has the visual style of Miyazaki's films but Miyazaki's films tend to vary a lot in terms of the target demographic. In fact, I do believe that Miyazaki's talk about the demographic target of his movies is just nonsense, he makes the movies he wants to make for himself and later comes up with talks about "movie X is for demographic Y".
In the case of Porco Rosso, Miyazaki made the movie just after he turned 50, so he went into a middle-life crisis. Thus, he made a movie about a tired middle aged man, who is drawn as a pig, because that is the way Miyazaki draws himself as a cartoon character. Then when asked what is the target audience he says "well, its made for tired middle aged men". In the same way, he said that Spirited Away was made for 10 year olds (because the main character is 10 year old), but also for those who were 10 year olds in the past.
In the same way, Howls' Moving Castle was the movie Miyazaki made after he turned 60, with the main character being a teenage girl who is turned into an old woman by a magic spell representing Miyazaki's dread of growing old. Then he said "oh, I made this movie for the 18-year-old elderly people".
Also, I watched
Paprika about 10 years ago, I vividly remember it even though I watched it only once. It's a very good movie, I don't find it to be Satoshi Kon's best but still, given he made only 4 movies before dying at a rather early age and they are all excellent and essential viewing for any fan of animation as well. In particular because like Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon's style is unique.
Kiki's Delivery Service is another masterpiece by Miyazaki, one of the greatest works of animation ever made (as most Miyazaki movies are). It was placed high on my list. I watched it about 6-7 times already, it is one of the most re-watchable movies ever made because it flows so nicely. Like Porco Rosso, Miyazaki made Kiki at the height of his creative powers and it shows. In fact, it is perhaps one of the very few flawless movie-length animations ever made.
Miyazaki said that when he made Kiki that he made the movie inspired by the young women who began working for him as animation assistants in Studio Ghibli. So he made a coming-of-age movie about young people leaving home and learning how to live as independent persons.