Review of Millennium Actress (2002) by Wut S — 12 Jun 2010

Satoshi Kon is a director of various animated films such as Paprika, Perfect Blue, and Tokyo Godfathers. Excluding Tokyo Godfathers, his films explore the realm of memory, dream, and hope. His treatment of "dream" as the dream of the sleep and as dream of life are fascinating and stylized. In Millennium Actress, a documentary director and his assistant/camera man visit a retired actress whose sudden disappearance from the industry was unknown. Fragments of her memory and excerpts from her past films are merged, narrating her life with non-linear, yet accessible sequences. We follow her life as an actress, from youthful protest against her mother's disapproval of going into the film industry, serving Japanese cinema during war period, to post-war success. It was revealed that at a young age, she had helped an anti-government painter to escape from authority. During a chase night under moonlight, he gave her a key and left. Intertwined images of reality and film reels illustrate her life chasing this man under the guise of an actress. The documentary film crew exists in these flashbacks, providing comic reliefs and had influence on the story.

This a profound movie. Often I find sentimentalism too forced or flat, but in Millennium Actress, this flows naturally. At the end I was enveloped in warm and blues. I felt like I have known a person, the life and soul through remnants of memory and dreams.