Millennium Actress
By John • Sep 10th, 2008 • Category: 3 Stars, Drama, FantasyThis is the second Satoshi Kon film I tracked down, and it’s again a good one. This time there is no horror or weird scenes, instead this is a very clean emotional movie.
The story is about a filmmaker who interviews a retired famous actress Chiyoko, who tells him about her life through her movies.
And that’s the visual trick this movie uses: the actress’s past real life weaves in and out of her movies, mixing real life scenes with movie scenes. It’s a very interesting way to tell the story, a refreshing one but a little confusing at times. It’s not always clear what’s real and what’s a movie scene.
Emotionally the story is about Chiyoko’s quest to find the love of his life, many choices she made in her life were based on this quest. This is an obvious parallel with the filmmaker, whose quest in life was Chiyoko herself.
I felt this movie was a long chase sequence, so at times I felt exhausted by it. But I thought that emotionally this movie really worked. I really liked the ending, it summarized the point of the story very well.
I am surprised how different this story is from Paprika, which shows the diversity of Kon’s talent. Can’t wait to watch the rest of his movies.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
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