Millennium Actress

Written by Tom Clare in Film Reviews, Monday 8 August, 2005

Milestone Animation for the new Millennium...

Scrolling along IMDB.com's list of 'Best Animated Films' one morning, I spotted something potentially amiss. An anime entitled Millennium Actress had not only sneaked in amongst the elite ranks, but was scaling the dizzy heights of #8 in the coveted list, matching and in many cases beating the majority of Disney's established classics.

I consider myself a definite fan of the anime genre; though freely confess that at the time I knew nothing of Millennium Actress (Sennen Joyu in Japan). In my defence however, it is not currently available to buy in the UK (though I am confident that one day it will be) and that the very concept of Japanimation is considered to be, at best, somewhat niche market to most round these parts. But I was intrigued by this mysterious film and didn't hesitate to investigate a little closer. What I saw I liked, and curiosity inevitably got the better of me - I snapped up a copy of the DVD from abroad for a highly-respectable £6.46, and in my opinion Millennium Actress proved easily worthy of this paltry sum.

Released in 2001 and Directed by Satoshi Kon, the brains behind the striking and intelligent Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress initially follows the fifty-something TV Presenter/Interviewer Genya Tachibana and his young Cameraman, as they cover the tearing down of a famous old movie studio following an earthquake. Genya is very excited though, as it emerges he has secured an extremely rare interview with the studios most famous star (and his personal idol) Chiyoko Fujiwara. The former actress is thought to be over seventy, and has been something of a recluse since she suddenly departed the movie scene thirty years ago. Genya and his cameraman arrive at her mountain retreat looking for an insight into her career, but what they (and the viewers) get is far more remarkable.

Before they begin, Genya hands a key to the ageing Chiyoko - simple and unremarkable as it may seem at face-value, the key triggers a series of flashbacks that date back as far as 1937, when Chiyoko was just fourteen.

The earliest flashback is the most significant as it forms the basis for much of the rest of the lead-character's life and therefore the subsequent storyline. We first see the youthful Chiyoko at her home, sitting silently as her mother argues with a filmmaker over whether she should grow up as a respectable housewife or become an actress. After her mother's best attempts to quash any chance of her fulfilling a career as an actress, Chiyoko leaves the house before her immense frustration and anger can boil over. As she walks solemnly through the snow-covered streets, she is knocked to the floor by a hooded man, who is fleeing from the police. In a split-second decision, she decides to help the stranger, promptly sending the chasing policeman in the wrong direction. It emerges that the stranger is wounded, so Chiyoko aids him by allowing shelter in a barn.

The stranger mesmerises Chiyoko as he tells her of his unique dream - he aspires to travel to the whitest and coldest place on Earth, amongst the mountains and in the snow, and paint the landscape before him. He promises one day to fulfil this wish and take Chiyoko with him, but he must first travel to Manchuria to fight alongside his allies - a place where his paintbrush won't be of much use. Before he flees the attentions of the authorities once more, the painter leaves a key he was carrying behind in the snow. Chiyoko vows that one day she will meet the painter again, and return his key to him.

She becomes an actress soon after this event, as she figures this may present her with the best chance to find where her mysterious painter may be. What follows is a beautiful trek through her long career in movie-making, depicting her on-screen guises that in various ways mimicked her real-life search for the man she fell in love with on that day over fifty years ago.

Millennium Actress is a supreme film; it's elegant, stylish, gripping, funny and moving. The story may at times prove a little confusing as it regularly jumps between Chiyoko's real-life exploits and those she acts out in her film-roles, but ultimately it's all pulled off so brilliantly that you can help but forgive it for its minor shortcomings.

Though the majority of the film is made up of flashbacks from Chiyoko's earlier days and past film-roles, they are conveyed to the viewer as much more than this. Perhaps the cleverest trick is that Genya and his Cameraman actually make physical appearances in the flashback's we see, and often play something of an active role in them. If Chiyoko runs, we often get to see the hapless pair labouring to keep up with her, and even find themselves in danger at the hands of bandits as they follow the leading lady through one of her more action-orientated film roles. To them, these are much more than just memories and because of their active appearance both in Chiyoko's present-day house and in her flashbacks, it appears that much more real to the viewer as well.

Satoshi Kon appears to have thrown a bit of everything into the mixing pot from which Millennium Actress was created - the comedy element often coming from the somewhat clueless-Cameraman, who comes out with the occasional witty quip, as well as at one point questioning what he is actually filming as he and Genya follow the teenaged Chiyoko down a snow-covered street in the opening flashback sequence. Genya himself is a fantastically larger-than-life interviewer who doesn't hesitate to take part in the re-enactment of many of Chiyoko Fujiwara's famed movie roles - his appearance as a ridiculously chubby ninja is one of the high-points humour-wise, though he also plays a part in her life story that she had long-since forgotten about. Action sequences are cleverly added in various forms - nothing too vicious, though we do get to see Chiyoko up against guards, bandits and samurai, and even caught in the middle of a bombing raid in war-torn Japan. Most surprisingly however, is how quickly and effectively towards the end Millennium Actress shifts to a more serious and emotionally-driven stance. Animation may have a harder time creating a trademark tear-jerker than a real-time acted film, but so powerful, symbolic and thought-provoking is Millennium Actress's conclusion that it's sure to make many a lip quiver.

The character of Chiyoko Fujiwara is, as you may by now have guessed, very important to the story. She appears more predominately than any other character, and is certainly the most analysed over the course of the film. We get to see her in her teenage years as she starts out as an actress, her twenties straight through to when she quit the business at forty, and finally in her seventies in the present day, having aged very gracefully. Indeed, her presence has a hint of youthfulness about it regardless of the era we see her in, and a warmth and elegance about her that means she quickly becomes a favourite with the viewer.

If the animation witnessed in Satoshi Kon's previous anime Perfect Blue was top-class, then Millennium Actress is surely at the very peak of the animated world right now when it comes to visuals. Pleasingly, there doesn't appear to be any CGI intertwined with the hand-drawn cels (that would just be lazy!) and everything is crystal clear. Every single character that makes so much as a fleeting appearance looks stunning, with detailed and appropriate facial expressions matched only by the often-flamboyant clothing and costume designs that cover a range of eras in Japanese history - it's a real feast for the eyes.

As I mentioned a little earlier, Millennium Actress is not available in the UK and nor to my knowledge has an English-dubbed edition been created as of this moment. Voice-acting may not be quite as crucial in this instance though it is reassuring that for the most part it is of an extremely high-quality - the three actresses who voice Chiyoko in her different 'eras' each pass the test with flying colours, as do all of the extra characters who make an appearance here and there, although the Interviewer Genya seems ridiculously over-enthusiastic at times! Subtitling is fine and presents no problems; the story unravels before the eyes at calm though not sluggish pace and for once, there are few slip-ups when it comes to the Japanese-English translation, so a job well done in this respect!

Provided an English-dubbed version of the film is one day released over here (it's so good that I feel it would be a crime if this was not to be the case), children would surely enjoy it more than in it's current Japanese w/English subtitles form, although the conspicuous lack of other children and talking animals in the film may mean that they have a much harder time relating to the story even if an English version came to fruition. I feel it is aimed squarely at an adult audience due to its clever and often-complicated storyline and complex characters - nothing in terms of acting or scripting seems too over-the-top, and so its thinking-man's Disney at worst!

If you are fan of anime then this is an absolute must-see - I had to watch it a couple of times to fully get my head around it (I found this to be the case with Satoshi Kon's other work, Perfect Blue, as well), but am in no doubt now as to how wonderful I feel it is - definitely one I'd watch multiple times. It's a gentle and refreshing classic, and even if you generally turn your nose up at the idea of 'animation for grown-ups', I would strongly urge you to give this tremendous film a try - you never know, it might be the start of something big…

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