Dry Ice Factory

On Sunday I watched Porco Rosso for a third time, after watching The Sky Crawlers for a second time. (A good pairing in that they both center on aerial dogfights in an alternate history.) This time I watched Porco Rosso with the English dub, which features Michael Keaton as Porco. Previously I had watched it with the French dub, which features Jean Reno as Porco. The film felt less mysterious this time, although just as visually beautiful, and I wondered how much of it had to do with being able to understand what the voices were saying (and thus not straining after the meaning) and how much was a difference between the translation that the dub uses and the translation the English subtitles use.

I lean toward the latter, but on slim evidence. The one place where I know the translations were significantly different comes during the phone conversation Porco has with Gina when he tells her he's taking his plane to Milan for repairs despite the fact that the Italians have an arrest warrant out for him. Gina orders him not to go. In the dub he says, "Sorry, I've got to fly." In the subtitles he says, "A pig's gotta fly." To me the latter is infinitely wittier and more ironic, playing off of "When pigs fly." Now, I have no idea which is the more accurate translation of the Japanese script, but my sense was that the dub is far less resonant and eloquent than the subtitles. Another example, now that I think of it, is when the mechanic, Piccolo, basically tells Porco to stop lecturing him. In the dub, he says something like, "I'm a god of engineering!" In the subtitles he says, "You're preaching Buddhism to Buddha." The subtitles have an aphoristic quality that the dub is completely lacking.

Over and over again I got the feeling that the dub was spelling things out that are left ambiguous or figurative in the subtitles. I suppose I should watch it again with both the English dub and the English subtitles playing at the same time, because it's possible I'm letting my anti-Disney bias sway my perception. The dub was done for Disney's release of the movie. I'm not sure who did the subtitles.