![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The 2001 anime movie Millennium Actress, on the other hand, requires no allowance for cultural differences. It is simply brilliant.
Genya Tachibana is conducting a biographical interview of Japanese film actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who quit her studio and disappeared into seclusion many years ago. We begin and end in the present day, but except for a couple of flashes back to the present, the movie takes place almost entirely within Chiyoko's memory. It quickly becomes clear that Chiyoko's memories of her actual past are inextricably intertwined with her memories of the roles she has played, due in large part to the fact that she drew heavily on her life experiences to inform her performances.
I can't really go into much more detail without spoiling things, so I won't. But I was captivated almost from the first flashback. The unreliability of Chiyoko as a narrator is evinced by the insertion of present-day Genya into the memories of the past, though this also raises the question of whether it is Chiyoko's recollections that are unreliable, or Genya's reporting thereof?
Chiyoko's story begins with her as a child in the 1930s, when Japan's government was fascist and expansionist, and it progresses from there through World War II, into the early '80s when she removed herself from society. (One of Chiyoko's later memories references the inaugural launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia.)
Interestingly, the cinematic style of Chiyoko's memories reflects the cinematic style of the movies she was starring in at the time. The occasional return to the present gives us a necessary chance to catch our breath and re-ground ourselves, and also softens the transitions between styles.
Also note the use of color in Chiyoko's memories--things she remembers vividly are presented in full color, but background details and less-important memories are rendered in subdued hues or even monochrome/sepiatone. Through it all, the visuals are beautifully and carefully drawn. The story is compelling. The lives and loves of a remarkable woman are made more intriguing, not less, by the deliberate confusion of her "real" life and her movie roles.
By a considerable margin, this is the best thing I've watched this year. I plan to buy it and make M. watch it.
Genya Tachibana is conducting a biographical interview of Japanese film actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who quit her studio and disappeared into seclusion many years ago. We begin and end in the present day, but except for a couple of flashes back to the present, the movie takes place almost entirely within Chiyoko's memory. It quickly becomes clear that Chiyoko's memories of her actual past are inextricably intertwined with her memories of the roles she has played, due in large part to the fact that she drew heavily on her life experiences to inform her performances.
I can't really go into much more detail without spoiling things, so I won't. But I was captivated almost from the first flashback. The unreliability of Chiyoko as a narrator is evinced by the insertion of present-day Genya into the memories of the past, though this also raises the question of whether it is Chiyoko's recollections that are unreliable, or Genya's reporting thereof?
Chiyoko's story begins with her as a child in the 1930s, when Japan's government was fascist and expansionist, and it progresses from there through World War II, into the early '80s when she removed herself from society. (One of Chiyoko's later memories references the inaugural launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia.)
Interestingly, the cinematic style of Chiyoko's memories reflects the cinematic style of the movies she was starring in at the time. The occasional return to the present gives us a necessary chance to catch our breath and re-ground ourselves, and also softens the transitions between styles.
Also note the use of color in Chiyoko's memories--things she remembers vividly are presented in full color, but background details and less-important memories are rendered in subdued hues or even monochrome/sepiatone. Through it all, the visuals are beautifully and carefully drawn. The story is compelling. The lives and loves of a remarkable woman are made more intriguing, not less, by the deliberate confusion of her "real" life and her movie roles.
By a considerable margin, this is the best thing I've watched this year. I plan to buy it and make M. watch it.