Millennium Actress

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Millennium Actress
Directed by	Satoshi Kon
Produced by	Taro Maki
Written by	Sadayuki Murai, Satoshi Kon
Starring	Miyoko Shoji, Mami Koyama, Fumiko Orikasa, Shōzō Iizuka
Music by	Susumu Hirasawa
Distributed by	The Klockworx Co., Ltd (JP), Go Fish Pictures (US) Manga Entertainment (UK)
Release date(s)	28 July 2001 (première at Fantasia Film Festival) September 14, 2002 September 12, 2003 (limited)
Running time	87 min.
Language	Japanese
Budget	Unknown
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IMDb profile

Millennium Actress (千年女優, Sennen Joyū^?) is a 2001 Japanese animated film by director Satoshi Kon and animated by the Studio Madhouse. It tells the story of a documentary filmmaker investigating the life of an elderly actress in which reality and cinema become blurred.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Style and influences 3 Reception 3.1 Box office performance 3.2 Awards 4 Cast 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

The narrative style is complex and interwoven in the style of "play within a play".

The film depicts a director, Genya Tachibana, who is working on a documentary about a famous actress, Chiyoko Fujiwara. In her old age, Chiyoko has withdrawn from public life, but Tachibana slowly draws her out. As he talks to her, the story of her life, from teenage schoolgirl to middle-aged superstar, gradually unfolds, illustrated through flashbacks interspersed with segments from her films. Her life spans the tumultuous period surrounding World War II, while her characters in movies span a time period from Sengoku period through a futuristic space age.

As a child in the 1930s, at the time of the fascist government, Chiyoko helps a dissident artist escape from the military. She becomes attracted to him; however, the next day he is forced to flee again. She finds that he has left behind a key to his suitcase of art supplies and she becomes an actress to travel to different lands in the hopes of finding him and returning the key. Although she never finds her lost love, she insists on continuing the search. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Chiyoko's love was caught and tortured to death by the military. Tachibana knew this, but was unable to tell Chiyoko. As Chiyoko finishes her story, there is an earthquake and she is injured. Tachibana takes her to the hospital, where she reveals that she suspected the possibility that her love was dead. It is implied that she dies at the end of the movie, continuing her quest to find him in the next life.

However, this story is complicated by the fact that most of the stories from Chiiyoko's life are illustrated with a scene from one of her films, rather than a true flashback, so that it is difficult to distinguish reality from fiction. In addition, Tachibana and his cameraman appear in films, and actually participate in their events in various guises. Tachibana always cast himself in her memories as her self-sacrificing protector, which he served as in real-life during an accident on the set that nearly killed her.

[edit] Style and influences

The filtering of Chiyoko's life through film history allows the setting, characters, and the visual style of the film to change suddenly. Some of the scenes are reminiscent of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, while others evoke Akira Kurosawa movies (particularly Throne of Blood). Director Kon has acknowledged the influence of Throne of Blood, but says that for the most part there are no specific references in his segments. Instead he drew on a vague general impression of the history of Japanese filmmaking and visual art for his different styles and stories; Kon insists that historical film was actually not a subject he had much familiarity with before he made Millennium Actress. He studied the settings and costumes carefully, however, and learned a lot in the making of the film, such as the history of the kimono.

The character of Chiyoko herself is somewhat reminiscent of Setsuko Hara, a famed Japanese movie star of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, who likewise withdrew suddenly from public life. Kon has recognized this influence in an interview, also citing Hideko Takamine, but insisting that Chiyoko is primarily a universal human character.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Reception

Millennium Actress was very favorably received by critics, gaining a 94% "fresh" rating at RottenTomatoes.com.^[1] Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan said of the film "as a rumination on the place movies have in our personal and collective subconscious, "Millennium Actress" fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before".^[2] Kevin M. Williams of the Chicago Tribune gave the movie 4 stars and put his feelings for the film this way: "A piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best... It's animated, but it's human and will touch the soul of anyone who has loved deeply".^[3]

[edit] Box office performance