Sometimes if you watch a lot of media, you end up coming across shows or films with a
synopsis that sounds simple and perhaps rather plain.
But while it does describe the plot accurately, it doesn’t necessarily describe the experience
of what watching that plot is like.
Take, for example, the film we are talking about today.
The brief synopsis could be read simply as thus: “Two men interview an elderly woman
for a documentary about her former acting career.”
Simple right?
And honestly, if you’ve seen the film, then you’ll know that this description is technically
correct, but at the same time it barely scratches the surface as to what the film is actually
about.
If I were to describe the film in a way to convince a friend of mine to watch it, I’d
probably use the same synopsis but also add the additional phrase, “as directed by Satoshi
Kon.”
Which by itself, for anyone who is aware of Kon and his works, would be enough to inform
you that this simple description is probably the best you are going to get outside of a
lengthy discussion about the film's plot.
Several weeks ago on this channel, we took a look at the 1997 film by Satoshi Kon “Perfect
Blue”, which was a horrifying take on J-Pop and idol culture in the 90’s, told in a
manner that made you question over time if what you were watching was real.
Four years later, Kon would release his next work where it’s made very obvious from the
get-go that the vast majority of what you were watching isn't real, but rather memories
recreated and blended with fiction to create something entirely new.
It’s fitting then that today we look back and remember this 18-year-old film about,
among other things, how a person’s history is changed by memories.
Ladies, gentlemen, and others
Welcome to Glass Reflection where today we are reflecting on Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress.
I should mention before we begin that, as with many films that only have a runtime of
an hour and a half, it is preferable to watch the film without much – if any – outside
thoughts or opinions on it so that you can experience it solo and possibly come to your own
unique understanding of the work.
In the case of Millennium Actress, while this is rather difficult, it’s not entirely impossible.
At the time of this video, Millennium Actress has been released on DVD by Manga Entertainment.
Although that release was back in 2005 and the discs are no longer in print and therefore are hard
to come by.
However!
Do not despair, because the sponsors of this video Eleven Arts are currently promoting
a theatrical re-release of the film in theatres across the US later in August.
Check the link in the description for showings near you, and a very special thanks to Eleven
Arts for their sponsorship of this video.
Now, on to the film itself.
Because of the nature of Kon’s work over the years of his life, it’s hard to truly
describe the man’s work.
However, one possible description is that he constantly re-examines the world in order
to answer one particular question: What is reality?
In Perfect Blue, we examine reality through the lens of a public figure and the difference
between how an idol views herself and how her fans view her.
In Paranoia Agent, we examine reality through rumors and see how public perspective affects
the world.
Then here, in Millennium Actress, we examine the memories of one elderly woman and how
her life’s journey affected her work as an actress.
The film opens with a sci-fi epic, in which a female astronaut is preparing to take off
to follow one person whom she promised to find.
Meanwhile a male colleague does his best to convince her to stay, if for no other reason
than because he loves her.
As her rocket starts to lift off, the perspective of the scene changes to that of a closeted
office, where a man is watching that same rocket from a small monitor.
The sci-fi setup was nothing more than a scene from a film.
But its relevance to the story and the life of the actress in question is far more important.
Similar to the synopsis we went over earlier, this scene is just another condensed version
of the films entire plot, shown to us in its first minute and a half.
This is when the previous synopsis comes into effect.
The man, Genya, was watching the film in preparation for his upcoming interview of former actress
Chiyoko Fujiwara, a star of the Japanese film industry who abruptly ended her career
30 years prior when it was arguably at its peak and became a hermit of sorts.
So Genya drags a camera man up to her house in the woods with every intention of getting
her life story and hopefully an explanation as to why she quit the business.
But when Chiyoko starts to tell her story, we as the film’s audience don’t just see
it through her eyes necessarily, but rather we see what both Genya and the cameraman see
as they are more or less physically drawn into her memories to witness what occurred
in her past.
The how or why of this is largely hand-waved, with the cameraman often lamenting inexplicable
circumstances, while Genya, a lifelong fan of Chiyoko’s work, is immediately enthralled
the same way any fanboy would be under the circumstances.
This is where the bleeding between memories begins.
Her tale is one of a young girl who runs into a rebel painter, a painter whom she shields
from police and investigators.
When he is eventually discovered and leaves for both his safety and hers, she chases after
him by taking acting jobs in the locations where she thinks he may have traveled.
But with almost every scene change, a question must be asked.
Is this her real memory, a scene from a film, or both?
Constantly, instead of seeing Chiyako in the role of an actress, we instead see the characters
she portrays, as she uses her passion to find that painter to both drive and influence her
acting.
We are not always viewing a young Chiyoko who is on a film set, but instead we see the
memories of her past blended with all the films she starred in.
This makes for an interesting way to portray how she interacts with both objects and the
people of her past.
The relationship she has, for example, with one of her fellow actresses, is something
that’s often shown not technically accurate to how the two actresses probably interacted, but rather
how all the different characters in the films they shared interacted.
When she was a novice, Chiyako was seen by the then star Eiko as an upstart, and the
roles that they shared from that point constantly kept them in a relationship where Eiko was
the disgruntled elder to this new rising star.
But we rarely see Eiko and Chiyako interact as individuals, even though their characters
interacted often.
Chiyako’s memories of events in her past get warped to more closely align with the
film she was working on at the time, where her fellow actors and even others in her life
are just other characters.
The government man who haunts her memories as he is trying to find her painter love often
finds himself cast as a scar-faced villain in the drama that is her past.
Dramatic situations that occur in real life are just the fictional battles of her works,
and her desire to chase after the rebel painter is overlaid on top of her character’s similar
desires.
There are even subtle visual cues that make determining what you are looking at even harder.
One would imagine that the metal key Chiyako holds so intently throughout the film, as
it is one of the few remnants of the painter that she has, would be the signal that when
she’s wearing it around her neck that this is the real Chiyako.
But many times that’s a red herring, much like the key itself.
The key was claimed by its original owner to unlock “the most important thing there is."
It’s an artifact that claims importance, but is ultimately irrelevant to how Chiyako’s
story comes to an end.
Much of how Chiyako is viewing her past is similar to how we like to fictionalize our
own memories.
Many of the little details are swept away, leaving the far more impactful moments of
her life which themselves are coloured by her own nostalgia of the past.
For her journey is one about the chase, about running towards a goal, a dream.
And, as we learned from the start, she eventually stops running.
It’s hard to really come to a conclusion about what Kon was attempting to portray with
this film, because so many elements are almost masterful in how nebulous they are.
The editing in the film is superb, bringing back repeated cuts edited oh-so-slightly to
be reminiscent of those which came before, only to be further mixed up in the memories
of the narrative.
It’s possible that even the lens through which we view the film is not the correct
one with which to understand the story.
So far we’ve been progressing with the assumption that the story is being told by Chiyako and
how she views the past, interspersed with her work.
But it could just as easily be shown through the lens of Genya, who filters the historical
events Chiyako tells him through his own knowledge of her work and his passion for the films
she acted in.
Or perhaps the real lens is the one we can actually see, the one carried by the cameraman
in virtually every scene of the film.
Capturing what is shown by the eyes of a man who knows not of Chiyako’s work but rather
the eyes of one who is hearing the tale of this fantastical woman, alongside the bursting
passion of his co-worker.
There are so many memories, so many filters, and so many alterations to the truth that
it’s hard to tell what is real anymore.
A reality that is oh-so-common with Satoshi Kon’s works.
When I first finished watching the film, I must admit that a part of me felt disappointed.
Almost like I felt that the film was incomplete in some way.
At the time, I took the story to be about Chiyoko’s journey, about the chase that
she undertook throughout her life for this man whose face she couldn’t even remember,
and I never really felt like the film finished off on a narratively complete ending.
But after a time, I sat on it and stewed the film in my head as I have tended to do with
almost every Kon film that I watch.
and I came to find that
Chiyoko’s life and love was in many ways a fantasy.
She chased after a man she couldn’t remember, through a life that many would consider fantastical,
guided only by her passion and a single key to a lock she never intended to open.
In the end, while the film doesn’t give Chiyoko a conclusion she might have wanted
when her young self first set out on her journey, she instead gave herself the ending she was
the most happy with.
Ending her career at the apex, at the height of her popularity so that when she is thought
of, she will be remembered for who she was, not who she became afterwards.
She was a girl who was chasing a dream.
She was chasing the memory of a man, not because it was some kind of love story, but instead
for the grand adventure of the chase itself.
Thank you for spending the time to watch my thoughts on Millennium Actress.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Apologies for the quality of the voice over over the course of the video, I've been largely sick
for the last week and a half but couldn't delay this video any longer.
As I mentioned near the start of the video, while the film is not easily available for
home video ownership barring you finding the old 2005 release by Manga, the film will soon
be screened by our friends sponsor for this video Eleven Arts.
And again, links are in the description.
Lastly, I want to give a very special thank you to my patrons, who not only support my
work in general, but who also allow me to do what I do.
I love and appreciate you all.
Specifically though, as I like to do, I want to give particular shout-outs to patrons Ryefan
Boneapart, Rune Jachobson, Joshua Garcia, Calhoonboy , Richard Bradley, Hector Montemayor,
and Siri Yamiko for being especially awesome.
You guys are great!
And until next time – ladies, gentlemen, and others – watch more anime…and stay
frosty.