flippyshark
08-06-2005, 10:40 PM
I just watched a movie called MILLENIUM ACTRESS. Wow, add this to your Netflix queue pronto!
This is not a genre film. It's a contemporary story about the life of Chiyoko Fujiwara, a movie actress whose career spans much of the 20th century. She narrates her life story to a documentary filmmaker, a man obsessed with her. Events from her life appear in flashback, but the documentarian and his comically dippy cameraman find themselves right in the middle of the action, in "Ghost of Christmas Past" fashion. On top of that, the setting shifts frequently into scenes and situations from her movies. Everyday reality suddenly becomes a sequence from a wartime movie, a samurai costume drama, a sci-fi space epic, even a Godzilla style Kaiju eiga. So, there are usually at least three layers to what is happening in any given scene. (Chiyoko's life, the story of the movie she is appearing in, and the documentary team observing and responding.) Often, conversations that seem to be taking place in Chiyo's "real world" memories reveal themselves to be dialogue from "on the set,' and it is fascinating how characters and places around her are in constant flux, but the basic story is a very simple one. This is a bravura display of cinematic style, but it doesn't get in the way of the heart of the story.
Speaking of said heart, this is a two-hankie movie. Chiyo's life isn't about her career, it's about the pursuit of the love of her life. Any description of the romantic storyline here would make it sound maudlin, and it isn't. The emotional content is handled poetically, with subtlety and restraint, and is all the more devastating because of it. This is the second anime (after GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES) to make me actually cry. It's not quite as wounding an experience as FIREFLIES, which left me devastated for days. It's a gentler kind of sad. Put it this way. I don't think I can watch GOTF again. I'm looking forward to revisiting MILLENIUM ACTRESS.
On a side note, the documentarian and his slacker cameraman may remind you a little bit of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. I don't know if this was intentional. It's not pronounced, just something that occurred to me now and then.
This film was written and directed by Satoshi Kon, who has already impressed me greatly with his violent thriller anime PERFECT BLUE, which shares some similarities in style and content. I highly recommend it as a co-feature (maybe not on the same night.) It's as good as any live action psycho type movie I've ever seen.
Both of these films are atypical, in that either could have been made as live action dramas. But the beauty of the hand-drawn lines and backgrounds gives these a quality that I don't think could have been achieved any other way. They both stand as proof that hand-drawn animation is a limitless medium, capable of delivering complex, sophisticated narratives with characters as dimensional and compelling as any flesh and blood actor. (Japanese animation may produce miles and miles of generic robo-crap, but they've also elevated the art well past anything anyone else has done. Yes, that includes Disney, alas.)
So, my heartiest recommendation for MILLENIUM ACTRESS, and the adventurous among you should check out PERFECT BLUE.
This is not a genre film. It's a contemporary story about the life of Chiyoko Fujiwara, a movie actress whose career spans much of the 20th century. She narrates her life story to a documentary filmmaker, a man obsessed with her. Events from her life appear in flashback, but the documentarian and his comically dippy cameraman find themselves right in the middle of the action, in "Ghost of Christmas Past" fashion. On top of that, the setting shifts frequently into scenes and situations from her movies. Everyday reality suddenly becomes a sequence from a wartime movie, a samurai costume drama, a sci-fi space epic, even a Godzilla style Kaiju eiga. So, there are usually at least three layers to what is happening in any given scene. (Chiyoko's life, the story of the movie she is appearing in, and the documentary team observing and responding.) Often, conversations that seem to be taking place in Chiyo's "real world" memories reveal themselves to be dialogue from "on the set,' and it is fascinating how characters and places around her are in constant flux, but the basic story is a very simple one. This is a bravura display of cinematic style, but it doesn't get in the way of the heart of the story.
Speaking of said heart, this is a two-hankie movie. Chiyo's life isn't about her career, it's about the pursuit of the love of her life. Any description of the romantic storyline here would make it sound maudlin, and it isn't. The emotional content is handled poetically, with subtlety and restraint, and is all the more devastating because of it. This is the second anime (after GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES) to make me actually cry. It's not quite as wounding an experience as FIREFLIES, which left me devastated for days. It's a gentler kind of sad. Put it this way. I don't think I can watch GOTF again. I'm looking forward to revisiting MILLENIUM ACTRESS.
On a side note, the documentarian and his slacker cameraman may remind you a little bit of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes. I don't know if this was intentional. It's not pronounced, just something that occurred to me now and then.
This film was written and directed by Satoshi Kon, who has already impressed me greatly with his violent thriller anime PERFECT BLUE, which shares some similarities in style and content. I highly recommend it as a co-feature (maybe not on the same night.) It's as good as any live action psycho type movie I've ever seen.
Both of these films are atypical, in that either could have been made as live action dramas. But the beauty of the hand-drawn lines and backgrounds gives these a quality that I don't think could have been achieved any other way. They both stand as proof that hand-drawn animation is a limitless medium, capable of delivering complex, sophisticated narratives with characters as dimensional and compelling as any flesh and blood actor. (Japanese animation may produce miles and miles of generic robo-crap, but they've also elevated the art well past anything anyone else has done. Yes, that includes Disney, alas.)
So, my heartiest recommendation for MILLENIUM ACTRESS, and the adventurous among you should check out PERFECT BLUE.