Review of Millennium Actress (2002) by Matt R — 16 Mar 2009

I usually like films that keep you guessing between reality and fiction (which seems to be one of satoshi kon's favourite themes), and the premise for millennium actress sounds intriguing (an eldery retired actress re-telling her life story to a small documentary crew--but her story seems to blend strongly into the stories of her many films.

..and how does the documentary producer fit into her story also?!) ... but it totally failed to grab me. but even now I can't quite work out exactly why. certainly I was highly annoyed with the poor visual quality of the dvd transfer (the colours were dull and it was all grainy and had many unwanted artifacts), but mostly I guess I just didn't connect with the characters or story.

however the film still succeeds in showing satoshi kon to be a director adept at handling multi-layered storytelling that challenges his audience.