Chiyoko, la actriz milenaria

If you have seen any other movies by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers), you get the idea that he knows how to tell a story. The stories are told in a dramatic, yet unconventional way. The story is about a Japanese movie studio that is torn down. The current executive in charge gets an interview with the studio's star actress, whom has been living in seclusion for years and does not give interviews. The movie seamlessly integrates dramatic moments, with light humor and stunning visuals. The visuals are breathtakingly imaginative not in that they are exotic and surreal, but rather stunningly realistic. Where Perfect Blue is more about the dark side of human nature, this movie is about the resilience of the human spirit and hope. What is similar, is that the reality of the story is in question. What is real, and what is perceived, is based on the perspective of the viewer. Definitely a must see movie.

-Celluloid Rehab

In some films, the dividing line between subjective and objective reality is very tenuous. In Satoshi Kon's poetic Japanese animé film Millennium Actress, it is almost non-existent. When the Ginei studio is about to be razed, documentarian Genya Tachibana decides to make a documentary about the studio and its greatest star, legendary actress Fujiwara Chiyoko who disappeared from public life more than thirty years ago. After finding an old key that belonged to the aging actress, he travels to her secluded mountain retreat with his assistant Kyogi Ida to interview her for the documentary. When Genya gives her the key, it unlocks a stream of memories that transports us (along with the cameraman and interviewer) to a different reality that allows us to relive one thousand years of Japanese history using the medium of cinema.

As she tells her story, Chiyoko recounts her birth at the time of the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 and how she was discovered as a child actress despite her mother's objection that she is too timid. She reveals how a strange young painter, a political outcast whose name she never discovers, gives her a key and then disappears, telling her that the key is "the most important thing there is". Chiyoko's dream of reuniting with her lover keeps her alive and becomes what her life is about. Unfolding more as emotion and mood than narrative, Kon takes us on a surreal journey through a series of films within films in which Chiyoko attempts to find her lost love, playing a princess, a ninja, a geisha, and even an astronaut. In the process, we witness a seamless tableau of Japan's history: the medieval period in the 15th and 16th centuries, the era when the Shogunate was in power, the Meiji period when the Emperor was restored, the Showa period before World War II, and the post-war occupation and recovery.

The line between events of Chiyoko's real life and scenes from her films is blurred and the film is difficult to follow on first viewing. To complicate matters even further, the interviewer, Genya, is cast in many roles in which he becomes almost a comic figure as Chiyoko's rescuer. Though the film is often puzzling, the search to recapture the defining moment in Chiyoko's life strikes a universal chord and we identify with her desperate quest. Though I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, Millennium Actress is a complex and beautiful film and Susumu Hirasawa's hypnotic musical score adds to the blend of warmth, emotional power, and magical realism. Kon sees life as a big romantic movie full of melodrama, humor, and longing and seems to be saying that while there is often confusion between who we really are and the shifting roles we play in life, what remains constant is our longing for love.

Genya Tachibana is a TV documentary maker and has tracked down his favourite actress; Chiyoko Fujiwara. On interviewing her Genya presents her with an object she had lost long ago; a key. From there we are transported through time and see Chyoko story about lost love and her struggle to find it. The key belonged to a man she meet when she was young. He was a rebel on the run and Chiyoko gave him shelter. He gave her the key as a thank-you. When he disappears she sets out to find this man. Still young, Chiyoko is approached by a film maker to star in his new film; she accepts and sees this as a chance to find mysterious man. She become a huge success, but she is always empty, never finding the man she loves.

Satoshi Kon has created a wonderful film about the lose of love and the extraordinary lengths one woman will go to find it. What makes this an interesting watch is that when we go into Chiyoko's past, Genya and his camera man also walk around in her past; interacting with people. But its just not a trek through her past, her memories meld with the movies she has made; as the movies parallel her life on her journey of finding her love, but also time in history. The scenes we see are from the movies she has made, but the story is her own life; her reality and her imagination have just crashed into one another.

The animation here is just visually amazing. Satoshi Kon's character designs are so unique they set themselves apart from another animations. All the backgrounds are so detailed and textured. What i find great is that Satoshi Kon adds that tiny bit of surrealism; adding more dimension and thought, here its how Chiyoko's memories meld into the movies she's starred in. Satoshi's script is so deep and full of angst. Its hard to watch this woman on her quest for love always failing; yet she blindly keeps going no matter what.

At great movie about the journey of love and how its never ending; in this world and the next.

Satoshi Kon is the extremely talented director who brought us the memorable Perfect Blue (1997) and perhaps changed the face of Japanimation forever. Here at his second feature film, ripe after a four years hiatus, he makes the wait well-worthed with a cunning cinematographic experience that literally plunges the viewer into the wonderful world of film.

Using the animation medium to push storytelling in film to new levels of effectiveness, Kon tells the story of a legendary actress who's life and career sparks the interest of documentary director Genya Tachibana. Along with his trusted cameraman, he undertakes to interview the now very old Chiyoko Fujiwara, spotlight actress in her hay days, and together they delve into her past.

This session blooms into a captivating narrative, blending elements of her life with roles in some of her films, and exploring her great search for love. The movie thus explores the personal challenges and self-realization that one undergoes through the different stages of life. It does so with the help of probing questions from Genya and is not shy of being epic in scale, passing seamlessly through fictional eras and time periods, superimposing characters, persons and life teachings. The fusion of reality and fiction is truly remarkable, and Satoshi Kon distinguishes himself from conventional dogmas in that aspect. For him, sky is the limit. He is only limited by his boundless imagination. The result is something fresh and spectacular. From the beauty of the vibrant images to the backdrop of lyricism and poetry, the movie explores life with us... and comes up with interesting conclusions. You will have to see and judge for yourself, but I promise that, if nothing else, it will have made you think.

I was privileged to attend the world premiere at the Montreal FantAsia Festival and was greatly honored to be blessed with the incarnation of the director himself, in flesh and bone. He strikes me as a very intelligent, very mature and wise man. There is an old woman in the film who says to Chiyoko: "I love you and I hate you more than you can imagine." I asked him the significance of that and he simply answered: "I do not really know what it means. I know that I understand many things that I did not 15 years ago. I just tried to project myself in the future, and thought of what I might be able to bestow to a younger inexperienced person like myself, with this increased wisdom that comes with life's trials and tribulations." I admit I am paraphrasing just a little (my japanese is not that good in any case), but that's essentially what he said, and this confirmed my belief, based on the artistic genius and masterful integration of complex thoughts into a simple, flowing, living piece, that this man is gifted. He has an incredible depth and is able to conjure it up to the surface and present it to us. One cannot but delight in his work and wait again for more enlightenment...

A suivre...

Finally I finished watching all films directed by Satoshi Kon.

It was fantastic as a Japanese Animation and a film. I couldn't help making noise at all the cuts because it was so cool. The scene of running on the snow and the scene of changing era were amazing.

On one hand, it was cool and I enjoyable so much but on the other hand it was the most difficult to understand compared to the other Kon's Filmography.

'Truth' for Chiyoko which is not 'fact', are absolutely nonsense as the camera man said. However, she was a film star even after retirement, and she literally told the story.

The important thing is that those nonsense stories were truth for her.

This film well showed the theme of Kon's creations which is 'story as fiction'.