Voiced by Miyoko Shôji, Shouzou Iizuka. Written by Satoshi Kon,
Sadayuki Murai. Directed by Satoshi Kon. (G) 87 min. Opens Sep 12.
When Miyazake spirited away the Best Animated Feature Oscar to Japan
last year, the gates officially opened for anime to storm the
mainstream North American market. Millennium Actress, the 2001 feature from Perfect Blue
director Satoshi Kon, is the genre's latest shot at Western box-office
breakthrough, and while it's a charming film, if you don't like the
clumsy but expressive faces, warped realities and whimsical images that
are anime's trademarks, it won't change your mind.
The story
centres on Chiyoko Fujiwara, a legendary actress who disappeared at the
height of her success. Genya Tachibana, a hyperactive, smitten
documentary filmmaker, has hunted her down with the intention of
interviewing her, and returning a mysterious key she left behind on the
set of her last movie.
As the tale unfolds, so does the film's
reality: Kon smears the stories of Chiyoko's life, haunted by desire
for the dark figure who gave her the mysterious key, with the stories
from her films, and the subplot of Genya's lifelong infatuation with
her. What results is a fluid narrative that charts the progress of
Japanese history, from the Shogun days through to the atomic bomb, with
Chiyoko, Genya and a few of their rivals as the major players.
It's
an impressive trick, and gives Kon the freedom to paint some stunning
pictures. The backdrops Chiyoko travels through -- vivid, stylized
dioramas of bright orchards, snowy mountains and ruined cities -- are
beautifully rendered, and have more depth than anything produced by a
Disney animator (Pixar excepted) in ages. Beyond the pictures, there's
some real content in Millennium Actress: Chiyoko's journey
through a thousand years of Japanese culture is also the country's
journey from medievalism to modernity, with all its romance -- and
repugnance -- on display.
Unfortunately, for all its invention and strange beauty, the
film stumbles on its anime roots; near the end, the plot begins to sink
in its whimsy, and the jumps in reality turn from soft revelations into
bizarre jolts. By the time Chiyoko ends up on the moon, spurred on by
the ubiquitous cheesy synth soundtrack, you can't help but think that
Kon didn't have the stamina to keep his elegant fairy tale from
degenerating into a
Final Fantasy-esque videogame.