tieman64
Satoshi Kon's films tend to have ambitious narrative structures. This one, "Millennium Actress", is no different. It revolves around Genya Tachibana, a documentary director who tracks down Chiyoko Fujiwara, a Japanese movie star he's long admired from afar. He finds her living in the countryside, now a recluse, having retired from acting some 30 years ago.Much of the film watches as Chiyoko recounts her life's story for Tachibana. Her many accomplishments and achievements are then tied to a young man whom she once briefly met and fell in love with. Tachibana, it turns out, spent much of her life attempting to track this man down, not knowing that he died shortly after their first encounter. The film then becomes an elaborate metaphor for a mankind which is doomed to perpetually chase after idealised, objects of desire. The unbridgeable gap between fantasy and reality then becomes the engine which both inspires all human progress, and is responsible for an intrinsic human Lack, an unquenchable discontentment. Achievement, then, is paradoxically tied to an inability to quite achieve. Typifiying the film's psychological complexity, "Millennium Actress" is structured as a grand chase, Chiyoko's reality is repeatedly traumatically interrupted whenever she nears her lover (on a psychological level, humans tend to self-sabotage, or self-destruct the closer they get to Desire), the film is symbolically framed by giant rocket-ships, mankind's capabilities limitless so long as there exists a gap to be bridged, and Tachibana's long-distance love for Chiyoko echoes Chiyoko's own love for the stranger.Whilst the film's first hour may seem disjointed, shapeless and even dull, a powerful ending helps bring things into focus. This ending is almost ruined by an unnecessary line of dialogue, given to Chiyoko, which spells out the film's central theme. It's a heavy-handed and unneeded line. Elsewhere the film uses Chiyoko's life story as a means of trawling through Japan's own political and cinematic history (lots of allusions to famous Japanese films and events).7.9/10 – Worth two viewings.
TheLittleSongbird
My first choice goes to Paprika, though that, this, Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue(in order of personal preference) are extremely good. Millennium Actress is outstanding in every regard. The animation style is both beautiful and surreal, which is a very good mix. The music is truly wonderful, ethereal and haunting, without overbearing or underplaying the drama. The dialogue is thought-provoking and emotionally complex. Millennium Actress really is also a masterstroke in storytelling, there is always something happening yet the story manages to be told in poignant, truthful, thoughtful and sometimes funny ways. The characters are interesting and well-defined, as well as always relateable to the audience. The voice acting does nothing to undermine this, being dynamic and expressive. Overall, outstanding both as an animated film and film in general, and Kon's second best of a truly impressive resume. 10/10 Bethany Cox
DreddMancunian
Not only is this better than any Western animation currently out there, but it's better than most live action movies too. This is the story of a director and cynical cameraman who track down a legendary actress who's been a recluse for the last thirty years. As she tells them her life story, fact and fantasy intertwine, and they become sucked into the world of her reminiscences. In this beautifully animated film the characters truly come alive as real people against awesome backdrops set in the past, present and future. It's flawlessly done. But the real treat is the story. A sophisticated plot line that constantly wrong-foots the audience. It is epic while at the same time intimate, and has an emotional climax that's rarely seen in Western films. Beautiful. 10 out of 10.
I B
Millennium Actress is a multilayered story told in a succession of beautifully composed, film-inspired moments, which traces the fortunes of Japan during the twentieth century through the prism of the experiences of screen star Chiyoko Fujiwara. Satoshi Kon is far too interesting a director to settle for a conventionally happy conclusion to Chiyoko's quest. He litters her path with earth-shattering events perpetually reducing her world to rubble. Through it all Chiyoko perseveres, acknowledging in her final moments that what has motivated her perhaps more than love of a man is love of the chase itself. The animation style Kon uses is deliberately old-fashioned, with still frames and sequences where nothing but a character's mouth moves. There's more than enough complexity in the structure of the story. Simple, sometimes stark lines and colors that echo the reality on screen combine with beautiful backgrounds to create a complex and elegant meditation on the power of dreams and images, the need to forge them, and the life-changing impact of finding your own star to follow.
AD
