Millenium Actress

Happy VD, everyone.

Saw Satoshi Kon's ("Perfect Blue") next film, "Millenium Actress." At first it seemed more superficial--a sort of self-indulgent celebration of Japanese films and an actress' long career. But at about the point when she sees the drawing of her, the story started getting hold of me; by film's end I loved it. Beautiful superrealistic animation, with some spectacularly stylized sequences. It wouldn't be embarrassing to compare this to Studio Ghibli films--that's the highest compliment I can think of.

Part of what makes Chiyoko so appealing is that her beauty is hardly important to her, that she's not at all full of herself; she's looking beyond herself, and actually, beyond almost everyone around her. She's already got one foot in that next world she's heard about, just a few inches beyond a man's reach, and that's what lonely men like Genya, or her film audience, find so fascinating (it's what audiences found so fascinating about Garbo--that she seems to be looking beyond her leading men at something ethereal, almost spiritual).