Millennium Actress
Year: 2001
Director: Satoshi Kon
Rating: 8/10
This Japanese animation from Satoshi Kon,
who also directed the very well-regarded Paprika, Tokyo Godfather and Perfect
Blue (none of which I have seen unfortunately), is a marvelous stroll through
Japan in the 20th Century and their film industry. It is nostalgic, warm,
amusing, magical, poignant and eventually bitter sweet. It also contains
a love story that reminded me of Dr. Zhivago in its vast panorama. The animation
struck me as simplistic with basic facial features and backgrounds but the
imagination at work jumbling and merging the real and the unreal storylines
together and sending us on an emotional trip is powerful.
Two reporters seek out an interview with
Chiyoko, an elderly actress who was once a huge star in the 1950's but who
went into seclusion many years previously when she was at the top. She has
disappeared from the public for decades. She agrees to be interviewed and
takes the two newsmen and the viewers on a trip into the past that is a mélange
of swirling memories of her life and the films she was in that covered the
genres - Ninja, Samurai, Period, Romance, Godzilla. But strung through all
of this is a love story that is hopeless and tragic. As a young girl she
literally runs into a young man who is fleeing the fascist security and she
helps him hide. In return he gives her a key that he says he will be back
for. For the rest of her life she searches, waits and hopes. The ending is
brilliant and nearly metaphysical.