Review of Millennium Actress (2002) by Scott F — 30 Nov 2003

Movies based around or about movies (or "meta-films" as I call them) can be a real hit or miss affair for me. It is not very often that I find them real entertaining. [b]Adaptation[/b] was pretty cute, but ultimately now hasn't lasted very long in my memory. [b]8-1/2[/b] is hypnotic, but that's not a good thing when I tried watching it once after midnight. I kept nodding off.

[b]Millennium Actress[/b], on the other hand, is more of a wild heartfelt adventure through the history of film in Japan (Godzilla makes a cameo) and its affect on two people in particular. They are Genya, a documentary filmmaker and Chiyoko, a reclusive actress who has granted an interview with him since the studio she has long worked for is closing.

What follows is a story where almost every scene contains dialogue and action that regularly alludes to not one, mabye not two, but perhaps even three different storylines. The script is fantastic in how there's overlapping of setting and situation and dialogue that all help to create a gorgeous dream-like feel. Reality versus fantasy is also a major theme and of the first shots of a city helps establish the thin line between the two. I backed the disc up several times during this shot because despite it being animation, the shot looks absolutely real.

Chiyoko leads Genya and his cameraman through her past and the visitors are astonished to find they are walking and interacting with Chiyoko's memories ala [b]Annie Hall[/b]. Or are they? Genya tears up because he's seen these memories before. Aren't these movies that Chiyoko starred in? How else would it explain Chiyoko appearing in a Kurasawa-like epic? Yet they follow her real life's story of longing after a lost love.

Illusion (and perhaps dillusion) come into play here. Chiyoko is pursuing a socialist artist she met and fell in love with as a young woman. That chase has fueled her whole film career. This aspect of the film affected me the most. Both characters suffer from unrequited love that they can never have. Genya has fallen in love Chiyoko, but is it her or her characters? And are they all that different?

Director Satoshi Kon gives the film a fairly realistic look, yet with the constant disolving between realities, Milliennium Actress takes on the appearance of a labrinyth maze. There is a moment set on the moon that is starkly beautiful and a shot that desolves between a highway and a hallway that actually had me in tears.

When I had heard about [b]Millennium Actress[/b], from the beginning I was intrigued. I was truly not prepared for how much I would enjoy it. It literally has a little bit of everything, from action to comedy to heartbreak. It has characters who are always striving, always searching through this maze of a film for love. Perhaps the most accessible and yet disturbing fact about [b]Millennium Actress[/b] is how love may have little to do with reality, and perhaps far too much to do with fantasy.

Or does it?

****/****.