Millennium Actress

Millennium Actress is an animated feature film by the creator of Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon. Released in 2001, the film quickly established itself as a cult classic here in America as one of the highest quality full-length anime films ever translated- in fact, the Chicago Tribune declared it as "[a] piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best..." (and yes, I feel a bit like I'm typing an essay for a class) . Its reception in its homeland of Japan was even more supportive- it freaking TIED with Miyazaki's Spirited Away for the Grand Prize of Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival.

Personally, I have to say it's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. The story follows the life of a young actress as it simultaneously follows her last interview as an old woman, and as the plot progresses it becomes increasingly challenging to tell her life apart from her roles in the movies- every part she ever played seems to have a personal resonance with her character, and often the only way you can be sure if she's playing herself versus one of her characters is to keep track of who is in what costume!

Every character in the movie plays a 'role' in her life- even the interviewer and his cameraman show up to rescue her several times over the course of the movie. Of course, it helps that he really did save her once when he was a young man and she as a much younger woman! The border between what happened in her tumultuous life and what the women she played experienced in their lives is deliciously blurred.

Her personal story of heartache and lost love is echoed across the lives of her characters- every lovesick teenager and heartbroken geisha, every abandoned young ninja (kunoichi, for those in the know) and unsatisfied housewife has one obvious, beautiful factor in common.

Every single one of them spends her life hunting for her one, true, long lost love- and find more pleasure in the chasing of this love than they ever do in reaching it.

Her tale is sorrowful and yet also full of hope and loyalty. She falls in love with a man who is an artist and a revolutionary, only to come home one day and find out that he has been forced to flee the country to avoid capture and execution. Before he leaves, he gives her a little trinket- the key to "the most important thing". She takes the key and swears to return it to him one day, and on that day she will tell him what that most important thing is. She follows him to Manchuria, acting in more and more movies in the hope that one day, he will see her and return to her. She keeps the key for most of her life, barring a few periods when it was either lost or taken from her. Not once during the course of the movie does she say what "the most important thing" is.

The movie is visually stunning in addition to being a emotional voyage. Satoshi Kon's talent for beautiful character design and selection of background animation is evident in full force throughout the course of Millennium Actress. The animation itself is graceful and flows elegantly from scene to scene, which isn't an easy task considering how jarring some of the switches between time periods, costumes, and environments could have been, given the structure of the movie. Every scene displays a vibrant array of colors that enhance the mood of the film, either by illustrating the joy and exhilaration of the actress' first love, or by sharply countering the lovers' heart-rending separation.

I've personally recommended this movie to several people and advocate watching it to anyone who enjoys either anime or those really, really rare love stories that mean something far deeper than boy-meets-girl.