Millennium Actress is a multilayered story told in a succession of beautifully composed, film-inspired moments, which traces the fortunes of Japan during the twentieth century through the prism of the experiences of screen star Chiyoko Fujiwara. Satoshi Kon is far too interesting a director to settle for a conventionally happy conclusion to Chiyoko's quest. He litters her path with earth-shattering events perpetually reducing her world to rubble. Through it all Chiyoko perseveres, acknowledging in her final moments that what has motivated her perhaps more than love of a man is love of the chase itself. The animation style Kon uses is deliberately old-fashioned, with still frames and sequences where nothing but a character's mouth moves. There's more than enough complexity in the structure of the story. Simple, sometimes stark lines and colors that echo the reality on screen combine with beautiful backgrounds to create a complex and elegant meditation on the power of dreams and images, the need to forge them, and the life-changing impact of finding your own star to follow.
Review of Millennium Actress
Millennium Actress
(2001)
A remarkably textured journey (both visually and emotionally) into the rich and varied past of an aging former actress.
22 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers