Millennium Actress (2001) User Reviews

Mastery of storytelling

[christian94 · 9/10 · 22 August 2001]

Satoshi Kon is the extremely talented director who brought us the memorable Perfect Blue (1997) and perhaps changed the face of Japanimation forever. Here at his second feature film, ripe after a four years hiatus, he makes the wait well-worthed with a cunning cinematographic experience that literally plunges the viewer into the wonderful world of film.

Using the animation medium to push storytelling in film to new levels of effectiveness, Kon tells the story of a legendary actress who's life and career sparks the interest of documentary director Genya Tachibana. Along with his trusted cameraman, he undertakes to interview the now very old Chiyoko Fujiwara, spotlight actress in her hay days, and together they delve into her past.

This session blooms into a captivating narrative, blending elements of her life with roles in some of her films, and exploring her great search for love. The movie thus explores the personal challenges and self-realization that one undergoes through the different stages of life. It does so with the help of probing questions from Genya and is not shy of being epic in scale, passing seamlessly through fictional eras and time periods, superimposing characters, persons and life teachings. The fusion of reality and fiction is truly remarkable, and Satoshi Kon distinguishes himself from conventional dogmas in that aspect. For him, sky is the limit. He is only limited by his boundless imagination. The result is something fresh and spectacular. From the beauty of the vibrant images to the backdrop of lyricism and poetry, the movie explores life with us... and comes up with interesting conclusions. You will have to see and judge for yourself, but I promise that, if nothing else, it will have made you think.

I was privileged to attend the world premiere at the Montreal FantAsia Festival and was greatly honored to be blessed with the incarnation of the director himself, in flesh and bone. He strikes me as a very intelligent, very mature and wise man. There is an old woman in the film who says to Chiyoko: "I love you and I hate you more than you can imagine." I asked him the significance of that and he simply answered: "I do not really know what it means. I know that I understand many things that I did not 15 years ago. I just tried to project myself in the future, and thought of what I might be able to bestow to a younger inexperienced person like myself, with this increased wisdom that comes with life's trials and tribulations." I admit I am paraphrasing just a little (my japanese is not that good in any case), but that's essentially what he said, and this confirmed my belief, based on the artistic genius and masterful integration of complex thoughts into a simple, flowing, living piece, that this man is gifted. He has an incredible depth and is able to conjure it up to the surface and present it to us. One cannot but delight in his work and wait again for more enlightenment...

A suivre...

A complex and beautiful film

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 12 January 2004]

In some films, the dividing line between subjective and objective reality is very tenuous. In Satoshi Kon's poetic Japanese animé film Millennium Actress, it is almost non-existent. When the Ginei studio is about to be razed, documentarian Genya Tachibana decides to make a documentary about the studio and its greatest star, legendary actress Fujiwara Chiyoko who disappeared from public life more than thirty years ago. After finding an old key that belonged to the aging actress, he travels to her secluded mountain retreat with his assistant Kyogi Ida to interview her for the documentary. When Genya gives her the key, it unlocks a stream of memories that transports us (along with the cameraman and interviewer) to a different reality that allows us to relive one thousand years of Japanese history using the medium of cinema.

As she tells her story, Chiyoko recounts her birth at the time of the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 and how she was discovered as a child actress despite her mother's objection that she is too timid. She reveals how a strange young painter, a political outcast whose name she never discovers, gives her a key and then disappears, telling her that the key is "the most important thing there is". Chiyoko's dream of reuniting with her lover keeps her alive and becomes what her life is about. Unfolding more as emotion and mood than narrative, Kon takes us on a surreal journey through a series of films within films in which Chiyoko attempts to find her lost love, playing a princess, a ninja, a geisha, and even an astronaut. In the process, we witness a seamless tableau of Japan's history: the medieval period in the 15th and 16th centuries, the era when the Shogunate was in power, the Meiji period when the Emperor was restored, the Showa period before World War II, and the post-war occupation and recovery.

The line between events of Chiyoko's real life and scenes from her films is blurred and the film is difficult to follow on first viewing. To complicate matters even further, the interviewer, Genya, is cast in many roles in which he becomes almost a comic figure as Chiyoko's rescuer. Though the film is often puzzling, the search to recapture the defining moment in Chiyoko's life strikes a universal chord and we identify with her desperate quest. Though I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, Millennium Actress is a complex and beautiful film and Susumu Hirasawa's hypnotic musical score adds to the blend of warmth, emotional power, and magical realism. Kon sees life as a big romantic movie full of melodrama, humor, and longing and seems to be saying that while there is often confusion between who we really are and the shifting roles we play in life, what remains constant is our longing for love.

Excellent blending of reality and illusion

[dbborroughs · 8/10 · 12 February 2005]

The life story of an actress told to reporters that blurs the line between reality and fantasy as the movies she made become he life and vice versa.

A wonderful continuation of of the ideas in the brilliant thriller Perfect Blue, we once again have our perceptions turned upside down and sideways. Who is telling the truth, or more importantly is it even possible to know when all we are anyway is a half remembered collection of memories, are notions thrown at us and left for us to determine on our own. This is a film that probably could never have worked as a live action film simply because the changes between reality, memory and movie could never be as seamless as they are here.

This is a movie for grown ups and very clearly shows why those who think animated films are only for kids is missing out.

Our loves and our youth.

[wassapjy · 10/10 · 9 June 2009]

Without a doubt, Millennium Actress is a masterpiece. Fluid scene transitions, vibrant colors, and gorgeous pieces of music not only allow, but forces the viewer to feel empathy for the character. I admit, I was teary eyed for several scenes in the movie, it's cinema at its best.

The story, like Kon's Perfect Blue, is told in a way where reality and fantasy are blurred and joined. Unlike Perfect Blue, the truth and fiction are not important matters in Millennium Actress. Perfect Blue was a movie about an event. Millennium Actress is a movie about an emotion: Love. That search for the long lost love is the only thing that keeps one young. Chiyoko, the main character, travels through centuries and millenniums to find it, but always fails. Yet her zealous passion for this quest is what ultimately keeps her young, even at death.

Watching this film, we will all be reminded of that one passion we've had during our youthful days and be reminded about our quest to fulfill that passion. Maybe that feeling will return after you've viewed this movie. Maybe you'll regret certain actions and decisions that you've made in the past. But that's of no importance. Because at that point, the film has done its job and you'll feel a little warmer inside.

more originality, life, individuality, and heart than in many movies being made in Hollywood

[tedne · 9/10 · 18 March 2004]

Chiyoko Fujiwara: even her names evokes 1,000 years of Japanese history beginning with the Fujiwara clan who dominated Japan a millennium ago as she dominated Japanese movies. The story begins with an elderly actress who recounts her life and career to a Quixotically worshipful producer and his Sancho Panza-like cameraman. Film juxtaposes with reality; and the triumphs and tragedies of one actress meld into those of Japan itself; objectivity and fantasy mock each other and dance with one another. At one moment the cameraman is making a pungent comment about cornball emotions, and the next moment he is dodging burning arrows from one of her movies. Perhaps, Chiyoko really is a woman cursed or perhaps blessed to endure 1,000 years of unrequited love. Perhaps the mysterious "human-rights activist" that she pursues through the centuries, and through one movie after another, represents an ever-receding ideal of love, truth, and human dignity that is yearned for by individuals and nations alike. They met just briefly, he gave her the key to "the most important thing in the world," and Chiyoko and the film characters she plays spend the next 1,000 years and the rest of her film career and the rest of her life trying to return it.

"Millennium Actress" and the techniques of animation were made for each other. Live-action could not possibly have created this stunning plunge though the centuries nearly as well, nor have depicted the transformation of a beautiful young women into a beautiful old woman. So-called live-action movies would have buried a live actress under layers of Yoda-like plastic to achieve the same effect.

Presumably you will be watching this on DVD; after you have watched this movie through once or twice, go back and select scene 12 and just watch that: it begins with an apprentice Geisha, (as played by Chiyoko), risking everything to pursue the human-rights activist (in this generation he is a rebel Samurai.) A merciless Javert-like pursuer barges in to ruin everything, but a Quixotic stranger rescues her for sake of idealistic love and sets her free to ride through the land of Japan to continue her search. She rides through Hokusai landscapes and through the battles of 19th-Century Japan. She continues undaunted even though the wheel of her curse keeps turning and is symbolized by increasingly modern modes of transportation: carriages, trains, bicycles; the splendor and tragedy of Japanese history whizzes by and still her journey continues. Her eternal quest for freedom turns into a freedom in itself, and -- by the way -- the medium of animation gives a mighty leap from the Saturday-morning ghetto to which American imaginations has confined it and shows off freedoms that live-action could never do as well.

This movie is action-filled but never manic; emotional but never overwrought; thought-provoking but never airy. The unpleasant little word Surrealism comes to mind -- it's unpleasant because it often evokes elitism, self-indulgence, and confusion. But "Millennium Actress" is never neurotic, never smug, and always invites the audience to join in the fun of mixing up film, memory, history, and desire, in surprising ways. There are enough delightful coincidences and plot twists to entrance an admirer of Shakespeare or Dickens. The musical score is excellent. The quality of animation is excellent, and these characters have more originality, life, individuality, and heart than in many movies being made in Hollywood.

After you have checked this out, look into Satoshi Kon's most recent movie "Tokyo Godfathers." Then investigate the movies of Hayao Miyazaki, who is the world's greatest maker of animated films, and also Miyazaki's fellow geniuses of Studio Ghibli. 9/10

Storytelling

[InzyWimzy · 18 July 2004]

Satoshi Kon shows his skill at drawing you into another world. Millennium Actress has a great story, really great characters, and keeps you fixated from start to finish. Watching this one made me forget this was an anime as I became fascinated by the life moving before me. Chiyoko is amazing at any age or time; her determination, spirit, and energy are infectiously admirable. Note the interviewer and our skeptical camera guy are third party observers in the dark, just like ourselves. Someone watching this mentioned how great the soundtrack is which adds a whole other level and really establishes pace, mood, and atmosphere throughout. A key reminding us of the value of a dream and how far would you go to fulfill it?

This one asks questions, has fun moments, and really touching ones. It's all done so creatively that you come along for the journey and find out it's all worth it.

a fight for love at its best

[nobbytatoes · 9/10 · 7 November 2005]

Genya Tachibana is a TV documentary maker and has tracked down his favourite actress; Chiyoko Fujiwara. On interviewing her Genya presents her with an object she had lost long ago; a key. From there we are transported through time and see Chyoko story about lost love and her struggle to find it. The key belonged to a man she meet when she was young. He was a rebel on the run and Chiyoko gave him shelter. He gave her the key as a thank-you. When he disappears she sets out to find this man. Still young, Chiyoko is approached by a film maker to star in his new film; she accepts and sees this as a chance to find mysterious man. She become a huge success, but she is always empty, never finding the man she loves.

Satoshi Kon has created a wonderful film about the lose of love and the extraordinary lengths one woman will go to find it. What makes this an interesting watch is that when we go into Chiyoko's past, Genya and his camera man also walk around in her past; interacting with people. But its just not a trek through her past, her memories meld with the movies she has made; as the movies parallel her life on her journey of finding her love, but also time in history. The scenes we see are from the movies she has made, but the story is her own life; her reality and her imagination have just crashed into one another.

The animation here is just visually amazing. Satoshi Kon's character designs are so unique they set themselves apart from another animations. All the backgrounds are so detailed and textured. What i find great is that Satoshi Kon adds that tiny bit of surrealism; adding more dimension and thought, here its how Chiyoko's memories meld into the movies she's starred in. Satoshi's script is so deep and full of angst. Its hard to watch this woman on her quest for love always failing; yet she blindly keeps going no matter what.

At great movie about the journey of love and how its never ending; in this world and the next.

Good storytelling !!

[CelluloidRehab · 9/10 · 18 July 2004]

If you have seen any other movies by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers), you get the idea that he knows how to tell a story. The stories are told in a dramatic, yet unconventional way. The story is about a Japanese movie studio that is torn down. The current executive in charge gets an interview with the studio's star actress, whom has been living in seclusion for years and does not give interviews. The movie seamlessly integrates dramatic moments, with light humor and stunning visuals. The visuals are breathtakingly imaginative not in that they are exotic and surreal, but rather stunningly realistic. Where Perfect Blue is more about the dark side of human nature, this movie is about the resilience of the human spirit and hope. What is similar, is that the reality of the story is in question. What is real, and what is perceived, is based on the perspective of the viewer. Definitely a must see movie.

-Celluloid Rehab

Thematically Similar to Kon's Best, But Lesser in Most Ways

[drqshadow-reviews · 6/10 · 22 November 2019]

Satoshi Kon's directorial follow-up to Perfect Blue is a somewhat lighter, less enveloping picture. We tail a pair of DIY documentarians, enamored with their subject, as they suss out the location of a reclusive former starlet and entice her to share her life's story. Truth and fiction intertwine in the telling of that particular saga, with personal memoirs stirred into various scenes from her best-loved screen performances. The result is a flighty, dreamlike atmosphere, a general easing in and out of the present that doesn't always follow a linear train of thought. It operates with a soft touch, which matches the understated nature of our aging narrator; smoothly straddling genres and decades en route to a destined meeting with a lost love.

That puts it on common thematic ground with both Perfect Blue and Paprika (Kon's 2006 swan song), which both toyed with perception and the meeting ground between internal and external realities. Millennium Actress, though, approaches the subject with reduced color and vigor, leaving less dangling threads to captivate audiences and fewer cornerstone visual showpieces to linger in their memories.

"Until the day we meet again"

[baseballfanjm · 10/10 · 7 May 2004]

This is a remarkable film, beautiful and heartbreaking.

Millennium Actress's style is strange, but it works. It is a love story through and through, and a wonderful one at that. Using a remarkably original and engrossing form of storytelling the memories of the main character, Chiyoko Fujiwara, are portrayed through her films as her career, life, and memories, memories that may or may not be as they seem, blend into cornucopia of sights and story. We are guided through this woman's life, her career as a movie star, her feud with jealous older actress, her marriage to a scheming director.... and her desperate search for her love. As a girl, she meets and falls in love with a mysterious painter, a fugitive known only as "The Man of the Key". Her memory of this one meeting and her love for him are the heart of the film. Note how little we know or see of the painter though. It plays perfectly with how this film tells its story, and how it portrays Chiyoko's memories. I don't want to reveal exactly HOW it works here, since that would involve spoilers. But nothing is left unanswered in this film, and it never lets up its pace. It's best just to sit back and let the film tell its story.

It all comes to an ending that is heartbreaking yet uplifting, and totally satisfying. This is easily one of the best films of 2003.

Don't let those who call it overrated deter you from seeing this film. See it and make your own mind up. You might just see why it has its well deserved 8.1 rating.

P.S. Pay attention to the music. It's fantastic.

Poignant and beautiful, a stirring foreign film

[kathleen-pangan · 10/10 · 3 December 2007]

Millennium Actress (Sennen joyu in Japan) is a poignant and beautifully created animated film that comes off more as a stirring foreign film than an anime. Even the drawings and movie posters in the film are stylized as movie posters used to be painted in the 1930s. The film is about a director and his camera man who go deep into Japan's countryside to get an interview with a once-legendary actress that stopped acting at the height of her career and who is now elderly and reclusive. The result is a journey through the aging actress's memories, from her lifelong love as a child for an anti-government painter before World War II to the many famous roles she has played; the scenes change as rapidly as the actress's mind drifts, and powerful emotions from her memories trigger scene changes as we travel with her in her mind. We learn about her life and eventually the secret connections between the many characters in her life and films, including the director who goes to her house for the homage interview.

Interesting concept, but I don't think it worked

[zetes · 6/10 · 17 June 2007]

Great concept, so-so execution. An interviewer and his cameraman sit down to interview a long-retired actress who's been shunning other reporters for years. The interviewer brings her a gift, a key that she lost long, long ago. It opens up her memories of a man whom she helped in her youth, in the era before WWII, and we see those memories entangled in her film career. These melded flashbacks are a beautiful idea. Unfortunately, for some reason the interviewer and his cameraman come along for the trip, filming the events inside the actress' head, and eventually even participating in them. This conceit never works, and in fact the film pretty much fails just because of it. It doesn't at all help that both of these characters are constantly used for unnecessary comic relief (especially the cameraman, whose reaction shots I'm guessing Satoshi Kon found hysterical, as they're in there so frequently). If Kon had left these two characters out of the fantasy, the film might have been great. Even so, it still would have been far away from a masterpiece. The central story of the girl looking for her lost love through her memory is great, but I didn't feel like I knew her well enough to care either way.

Visually splendid but awfully melodramatic...

[jmaruyama · 5/10 · 10 November 2002]

(Some Minor Spoilers) Satoshi Kon's sophomore piece Sennen Joyuu (aka Millennium Actress) is a decent anime (animated) feature that is a visual wonder. Like his previous feature Perfect Blue, Kon succeeds in transcending the boundaries of Japanese Animation to bring a love story that doesn't follow the typical norm of Japanese Anime (guns, robots and tentacles). Millenium Actress follows the life of Chiyoko, a cute girl with a mole through the turbulent history of Japan from the Age of the Samurai, through the Feudal Wars, to the Tokugawa Age of Foreign Influence, up through the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, into the World War II Tokyo bombings and beyond. Taking its cue from Forrest Gump (1994), Chiyoko, an aspiring actress continually finds her life intertwined with the various time periods as she pursues the love of her life, a mysterious artist. Told through the eyes of a Producer documenting the life story of Chiyoko through her films and roles, Kon plays tribute to various Japanese film genres during the course of this feature. From the Samurai epics of Akira Kurosawa, to the sappy melodramas of producer Haruki Kadokawa, to even the giant monster mayhem of Inoshiro Honda, Millennium Actress covers it all. Unfortunately the story becomes a bit tiring after a while and the `time jumping' from decade to decade becomes a bit confusing (one minute we are in Manchuria in the 1930's and then we're transported back in time to Feudal Japan with scarcely an explanation). The love story aspect of the story is touching if a bit melodramatic as we are never really given any explanation of why Chiyoko is so enamored by the tall stranger she meets as a girl. There are funny bits of comedy that break up the somber mood however and the inventive animation will recall similar techniques used in the British Animation Feature Yellow Submarine (1968) (mixing animation with semi-realistic photos). All in all Kon succeed in breaking the stereotypical impressions of Japanese Animation and like fellow contemporaries Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira) and Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) are introducing a whole new generation of Western Audiences to Anime.

Satoshi Kon's second best film

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 7 January 2013]

My first choice goes to Paprika, though that, this, Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue(in order of personal preference) are extremely good. Millennium Actress is outstanding in every regard. The animation style is both beautiful and surreal, which is a very good mix. The music is truly wonderful, ethereal and haunting, without overbearing or underplaying the drama. The dialogue is thought-provoking and emotionally complex. Millennium Actress really is also a masterstroke in storytelling, there is always something happening yet the story manages to be told in poignant, truthful, thoughtful and sometimes funny ways. The characters are interesting and well-defined, as well as always relateable to the audience. The voice acting does nothing to undermine this, being dynamic and expressive. Overall, outstanding both as an animated film and film in general, and Kon's second best of a truly impressive resume. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Beautiful and unforgettable

[shihanyu · 10/10 · 27 May 2017]

This film further reinforces my belief that Director Satoshi Kon is a master of depicting abstract ideas, especially love, time, and dreams. Kon never lets the limitations of reality interfere with his imagination and creativity. He is a consistent example of how anime can create a work of art that can't be shown through live-action films.

The Millennium Actress follows Genya with his camera man, Ida, as they interview Chiyoko and learn the life story of the actress, who has since retired and secluded herself in bamboo forests and hills. The film does an amazing job of telling Chiyoko's story through the various movies she made throughout her life and showing the idea of forever chasing your dreams.

The storytelling method by Satoshi Kon, where he puts Genya and Ida into the depiction of Chiyoko's past and movies, is fascinating and undoubtedly effective. Genya and Ida are like ghosts from the future looking into Chiyoko's life as she chases after the man she loves. It was refreshing to see the two interact physically and emotionally with the past world in order to "shoot" Chiyoko's story, as well as helping her "bring the movies to life."

The editing, as expected from Satoshi Kon, is phenomenal. The transitioning between Chiyoko's stories and her movies are beautifully done. The movies and characters all have recurring themes as the stories shift genre backgrounds and time periods. The constantly changing settings and stories seem to reflect Chiyoko's feelings at a particular time in her life. The depictions of Japan's historical eras all the way to the Space Age are not only well designed, but they are never too long nor too short, and they keep the viewers constantly engaged as they piece together Chiyoko's life story.

As an aside, I personally think that I've never seen someone direct and edit scenes of running/chasing better than Satoshi Kon.

The soundtrack also helps to bring the animation to life and works in unison with the film to draw out emotions.

Overall, Millennium Actress is a touching story told in the most creative, beautiful, and elegant way. The film is sure to stay with you as you go through your own life chasing dreams.

Outland Empire

[tedg · 31 May 2007]

A key reward for writing IMDb comments is that readers send you recommendations. This is one that I had a hard time tracking down. I'm glad I did.

This seems to be viewed only by fans of anime, and that's a shame. I'm not knowledgeable enough in anime to note how it fits. It seems to be in the more "realistic" spectrum, with fewer edges and less posturing.

Japanese writing has gravity. In traditional mode, the eye falls down as it gathers a phrase. The characters are derived from ink on paper instead of the western fonts shaped by chisel on stone. And where the characters I use in English have no inherent semiotic association, Kanji is inherently pictographic. A Japanese reader will literally harvest phases by falling through images, images in a static situation with dynamic sweeps therein.

So when I come to anime, I look for this. Being nonJapanese, I can see it and appreciate it more than a native can I believe.

That's why I'm excited about this, because the visual phrases are imposed on some folds I know.

First about the folds. The way this is structured is as a double documentary of an aged film star, "Sunset Blvd"-wise. Its double because we have a camera and we are seeing the two documentarians: one the interviewer and the other with a camera. (We never get a view through that camera, I think.)

The interview blends with the actress's flashbacks. Now this is very clever, how this is done.

It isn't memory: the documentarians are physically there when a "past" episode occurs. The cameraman constantly asks "what next?" and the interviewer takes on the role of certain characters in the films. These really are films, we see, when sometimes the "camera" rolls back and we see the crew. This is a third camera.

But more: all of the films over many decades conflate and merge, interweaving back and forth through history, forming a single quest for a love. That love is for a painter, who clearly is the animator of this cartoon, "Duck Amuck"-wise. These films not only merge with each other, and the quest, and the "interview," but with her life proper.

As with "8 1/2 Women," earthquakes figure in the shifts and overlays of stories. The thing that binds it all is a "key" which we learn early is to a paintbox, the source of all the paintings we see. Its wonderful organic oneiric origama. oneiroticama.

And that's just the story. Watch how the phrases are constructed though. We fall through them, soft layer after cloudy image.

Its like relaxing into love with perfect trust. You really should see this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Defying time and space, love is consummated

[sunsetrider · 9/10 · 20 December 2003]

Reprising roles that span a millennium, an actress who longs for her first love re-enacts the drama of affirming her love for him. 'Millennium Actress' puts the theme of unrequited love in a light that is universally encompassing. It is ultimately a story of a pure-hearted character whose loving devotion to one person, innocently conceived and passionately guarded, lends itself sentience and weaves fiction with stark reality of often longing and despair. There is no doubt that this film has left me profoundly impressed.

'Millennium Actress' adopts an esoteric 'film within film' form that is disclosed in flashbacks by the actress, Chiyoko. Her highlights of her cinematography is interwoven with real events of her life, and both fiction and non-fiction aspects of her life adhere to the context of concise Japanese history. Some of these flashbacks at least in their thematic references recur more than once, and variations between them become clever plot devices that lend meaningful depth of time and space to the film.

The recurring and consistently relevant symbols in the flashbacks not only pique the viewer's interest, but also anchor a means to explain the psyche of Chiyoko. Her reaction in each flashback and present to one particular entity is another indication of her perspective on her love, one of many signs of deep implication that enhances the film.

The animation in the film tends to be minimalist except for a few instances where it is cast in significant passage of film (for example running), but the art direction and technique which realize various era of Japanese history and provides a fluid transition between fictional flashbacks to accounts rooted in reality is most elegantly and superbly executed. Character design is accordingly appealing, especially the depiction of Chiyoko through various stages of her life that delineates the same dignity and purity. So much so that it seems almost as if Chiyoko itself transcends to some abstract form of ideal love, only unrequited, and therefore something of great potential but not wasted; since it essentially defies time and space, as allegorically portrayed in her various film roles.

The director Satoshi Kon commented in his interview on his pleasure with the music, which seems to be electronically assembled with a lot of repetition. It sometimes stands out as a bit overbearing and idiosyncratic, yet considering the nature of theme from the film it does not detract from the overall viewing experience.

Only note of letdown, if there is any point to it at all, comes from my personal disdain for a rather melancholy sequence at the end. Yet, a conventional Hollywood resolution would not apply here. As a footnote to my rambling, and for which I must apologize, I should add that 'till death do us part' could not be more opposite of what this film professes.

9/10

In a nutshell...

[milkshakeboom · 9/10 · 10 January 2006]

Disney Eisner and his crew both on their best day and in their wettest dream could and would never make a film as good as this or "Perfect Blue" or anything by Miyazaki. That's why they import it and put their name on it though...this way the prestige can rub off on them. Hey, something has to keep DisneyCorp at least semi-respected by the animation world and its fans.

This is a wonderful film with a rich and powerful story, combined with episodic and grandiose animation and "cinematography" that just keeps your eyes and mind glued to it at all times. Rent this. Buy this. Live this.

interesting but confusing

[Andy-296 · 6/10 · 8 April 2015]

In this interesting, very attractively drawn anime from Japan, a TV journalist gets to interview Chiyoko Fujiwara, a once famous actress who mysteriously became a recluse after retiring from acting some 30 years ago. As she is interviewed about her movies, she turns into the characters she played, in different eras and in different genres, and fantasy becomes confused with reality.

The movie's conceit is interesting. How it is carried out, not so much. At times, the story becomes a bit too confusing. A more straight- lined screenplay would have helped.

Note: Though she doesn't look terribly like her, Chiyoko Fujiwara is obviously inspired on Setsuko Hara (born in 1920), the beautiful actress who starred in many of the best films of Yasujiro Ozu (she was the understanding daughter in law in Tokyo Story), and also in some films of Akira Kurosawa and Mikio Naruse. Hara not only retired from cinema, but also has rejected any interviews for 50 years, living an apparently recluse life in Kamakura, the Tokyo suburb where many Ozu's films are set (and where Ozu himself is buried). In the movie, Fujiwara seclusion is due to an early romantic disappointment. As far as I know, no one knows the reason of Hara's disappearance from public life.

Interestingly, director Satoshi Kon was born in 1963, the same year Setsuko Hara retired from cinema (and also the same year Yasujiro Ozu died). Kon unfortunately died of cancer in 2010; Setsuko Hara incredibly, is alive as of 2015.

Satoshi Kon's tragic-comic surrealist love letter to Japanese cinema

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 20 August 2019]

First and foremost, or what it appeads to be in abundance, marvel of storytelling, though that really means it all comes down to the *telling* part. The story itself, if laid out in its basic terms, might not seem so complex: an aged actress who left the industry behind decades before recounts her experiences in film, but most especially the search for a sensitive young painter she met, and how it encompasses the history of modern Japanese film... Which also means an actual "millennium", possibly, anyway.

Yet what is complex is how Kon ties each segment together, which is something that has to be conceived of on the page and yet also takes artists who not only understand structure but know it so well they can bend it and push it. This is a master's class in how to transition from one moment to another, from one period to another, from a setting and a costume and a feeling that isnt jarring, but is instead keyed into a total dream logic.

David Lynch did a similar technique (I think anyway) with Inland Empire a few years later, though that didn't have a key journey to pull it together (here it's the searching, or in Chiyoko's words "the pursuit"). The one thing that... I won't say concerned but something I noticed for about halfway through is that, as astonished and captivated I was by Kon's sheer daring as a filmmaker, and that he could manage to pull off not only taking the audience through these moments (maybe even shards) in time and also include the documentary filmmaker characters into the scenes and for that to somehow work too (and it almost shouldn't, like simply seeing the camcorder the man is holding could break the spell), I wasn't totally connecting with it emotionally. Like, my brain was saying" "this is a sort of conceptually great film, but I don't find myself as torn apart as watching Perfect Blue or even Paprika)...

And then it comes out what the background of the main documentary filmmaker, Genya, interviewing Chiyoko is all about, that he used to be on set but never approached her (how could he as a lowly crew person), and it hit me that there's a greater story being told here. As much as her own obsessive quest consumed her, she might have taken for granted what an impact she made on other people, or who else did connect with her (maybe life is a series of being protected and protecting others), and in a sense it's this filmmaker's emotional story that makes the whole thing complete. I do hope to visit this again and I have the sense, like with all of Kon's films, more will be clear.

For now though, Millennium Actress is fascinating as a piece of reflective Japanese film history (particularly with Setsuko Hara - and yes, I believe I saw a ground-level Ozu shot during that one scene in the house that is the film scene within the film being made), absorbing in the direction and how Kon goes about the precision of moving through a consciousness, which is a MAJOR achievement to pull off as seamlessly as this is (one minor nitpick, the music at times is a little too cheap-synth sounding), and it hits one in the heart once it comes to the conclusion.

Sometimes a tad too confusing, but overall a rewarding watch

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 24 June 2022]

"Sennen joyû" or "Millennium Actress" is a Japanese anime movie from the beginning of the new millennium, 2001, so this one had its 20th anniversary last year. Of course, it is also almost exclusively in the Japanese language and at under 1.5 hours, it is not a particularly long movie we have here. Interestingly, here we have a director who apparently was in charge of penning the original story, but not the screenplay and that is something you don't really see too often, neither with animation, nor with live action. The name is Satoshi Kon and he was still relatively young when he made this film. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us anymore, died from cancer over a decade ago, but this film he left us here is surely among his most known career efforts. I cannot really elaborate on the voice cast here except by saying that I felt they did a decent job overall, but it should not surprise anybody because the majority seemed relatively experienced already back then. Maybe they also worked on more projects than the ones you find listed here because with countries from a far distant continent you never know how complete the list is. I had the chance to watch this film yesterday on the occasion of an anime film festival at one of my local theaters. I did not regret the decision, even if I was not totally blown away by the movie and this is the first from quite a bunch I will watch over the next couple days. Let's say a few words about the plot first. We have a reporter or journalist (said chubby guy) and his cameraman who are climbing up a hill to a somewhat remote destination to reach a house in which an elderly lady lives, completely on her own with no real contact to the outside world, except her employee perhaps. This lady was once a most famous actress, but now nobody really remembers her anymore. This can also be seen through the camera guy who says something along the lines like why would anybody still care about her. That was a bit mean, but later on, he also brings in some okay comedy here and there like when he says the old guy is going wild again (not literally) or on another occasions says he is ready to retire if they make it out of a specific scenario. This was a nice reference to how the duo was in the middle of the action that took place decades ago. Like literally they were there.

The more interesting character from the comedy perspective is the interviewer for sure. He is really a huge fan of the actress. Always has been, always will be. This results in some funny moments, like most of all how he comes to save her really on a few occasons, even if she (her younger self) is not too happy about it or also how he is mad at the guys who are romantic opposition, like most of all the one the woman is chasing all her life of course. But also he deeply cares for her, cries hard when he finds out she is about to die. As for the saving part, there is an unexpected turn there because this reporter guy when he was younger back then and some kind of extra at the film set where the actress was working was really there and even when there was a serious accident he kinda saved her life. The actress had not forgotten about this, but she did not make the connection that it was him in fact. It was still a bit odd because he says on one occasion they caught him standing there when nobody could have recognized it/him and he must have said it himself. Despite how humble he appears, but still of course he wants her (old version) to appreciate him, which may explain why he said it. So you could say that he had always been as infatuated with her as she had been with the mysterious young man with the painting. Well, maybe not that much. The interviewer guy is mostly in it for comedy reasons. Another pretty funny moment I liked was very brief, namely when we see the three so much inside the story decades ago that their bodies are in the same positions in the now like their characters' were back then. This makes for a funny sight for sure. Also the moment when we see the housekeeper for the first time when she opens the door and maybe we mistake her for the actress was a bit on the funny side. There's more. As you almost always see it with anime, drama is key, but there are also some moments in here where you will laugh a bit. Or smile at least. Most of the jokes are somewhat linked to the aforementioned older, chubbier male character.

This film, like anime so often does, delivers fully in terms of comedy through exaggerated moments. On the more serious side,the female protagonist's idea about finding who she considers the love of her life was also well-done. Unfortunately, there I was repeatedly distracted because of the idea how they mixed up the movie back then and combined it with reality. You could never really be sure what was going on. So my thought in the end was that she somehow starred in a movie about her own life, fully based on what she had on her mind. Or who I should say. This would also fit from the perspective that she reenacts all this hoping that the man of her dreams will understand and come across it somehow somewhere. Also in terms of dramatic sequences, the film is not scared of exaggerations. The spacecraft opening pretty much did nothing for me and at some point she even ends up on what seemed to be the moon (maybe reflecting a saying that she would follow him to the moon even) and sees a painting there that could be from the one she is looking for. Also, from a completely neutral and unbiased perspective, it is a bit difficult to believe that this encounter there in the beginning could have really changed her life to such an extent. Sounds very much obsessive. But let's not go any further into detail there and stay optimistic instead and just enjoy the movie magic. Visually, I surely enjoyed the watch. I have to go back to the clashing between film and reality. Just to mention a few moments where it seemed like film in film we had the moment when the reporter guy says something like this is one of his favorite moments or even his favorite moment. Or when her character talks to her mother who as we find out was against the idea of acting from the very start and then we see and hear somebody say "Cut!" and realize it was just a scene they shot for a film.

The revelation at the end was extremely sobering then. We find out the man that everything is about had died very briefly after the events back then, so she has indeed been chasing a spirit. When she dies in the end (not too surprising, especially with the foreshadowing how she says on one occasion she might not remember her story the next day, even if I initially thought she had Alzheimer's or something), she probably knows herself that he is deceased as well and that's why she says she can now keep searching for him on a whole new level basically, i.e. Where she is going now and still hoping they will be reunited there. This is emphasized by the fact that she also still carries the mysterious key the moment she passes. Pay attention to how the chubby comedy guy never toold her about the man's early death. You could think he would, so that one will be less of a rival, but he does not want her to lose her dream and suffer by finding the sobering truth. Like so many times with anime films, there is also a supernatural component in here, namely an old lady and we understand she is a spirit somehow and has a beverage that gives somebody (almost) eternal life, but also eternal suffering from being lovestruck as she says on two or three occasions. Near the end, it feels like that character blends together with the now old female protagonist, even if the latter was of course not a millennium old, but I did not really understand this scene and character anyway. Also who does she love and despise? Her really young self? Because she would not let go of the man of her dreams? Well, there were no regrets at all from the character herself, so a bit doubtful. Or maybe it was the voice of reason inside her head.

Time to finish. I think I have made myself clear that there was stuff I liked from this film and other stuff I did not like too much, but the positive elements were more frequent overall. Music was nice too. Sometimes I felt that this film just tried to be a bit too much to be honest, to become too deep and memorable for its own good. It did not have to be like that. The story it was putting on display also could have been a huge success if they had kept it a little bit more simple. This also refers to a crucial war in Asian history that is part of the film on several occasions, especially in the first half. It was a bit of an enigma, also how they included several characters that had the same faces, so they were maybe not the exact same characters, but stood for the exact same pretty much. This refers to the one asking the girl where the bad guy went of course. On one occasion, he just follows what she said and on the second occasion he is more critical and gets out his sword and threatens her to tell the truth or he will kill her. Also with this other fairly mysterious female character I was struggling a bit. I felt she could have had her own film and story somehow, but here the way they used her as filler material I was not won over and preferred it if the film had been completely without her. That is all now. It is a good film for anime lovers who have seen a lot already, but if you are still relatively new to the genre of Asian/Japanese animation, then there are tons of other films you might want to see before this one. I still give it a thumbs-up, just not a highly enthusiastic one. Go check it out.

Beautiful

[peak_performance · 9/10 · 26 January 2006]

Millennium Actress is a stunningly beautiful piece of animation.

The movie begins by showing a pair of documentary makers, an old interviewer and his younger cameraman, who have been given the privilege of interviewing one of Japans biggest female movie-stars ever, Chiyoko Fujiwara, about 30 years after she unexpectedly retired from film-making. As they start the interview they are shown the actress's story from two angles - her real life, and the movies she has made. They are surprised in finding that those two don't differ as much as one might think.

Following the celebrated actresses life is wonderful, albeit a bit hard to follow on the first viewing. From Manchuria in the 1930's following her real life the movie suddenly jumps to feudal Japan and one of Chiyoko's movies in a completely different setting, after that to another movie set in yet another era and a different genre. We are shown action, drama, science fiction and horror, often without any narration where the real characters can explain what is really happening on- and off-stage as other movies have thought us to expect - this most likely leads to some (or many) viewers not really understanding that what we see in Chiyokos movies at the same time is her real life story, in turn perhaps leading to a sense of unfulfilment. That "Millennium Actress" had no real story, when it absolutely has and the story is a great one. Director Satoshi Kon plays with us, using refined techniques from his previous movie "Perfect Blue" in binding the two lives of Chiyoko together and making us question what we are watching. Is it one of her movies or a scene from her real life? Once again Kon proves himself to be a one of the worlds best directors.

Now, if the two different perspectives doesn't make it complicated enough, the interviewer and his camera man also get to join in on the fun - appearing in the memories and films of Chiyoko's life. While sometimes being just right, as well as underlining the intimate knowledge the interviewer has of her films, the comic relief they are supposed to yield at other times can distract from the scenes themselves. It's a small nitpick, especially considering how they bring the audience closer to what's happening in the movie and really lifting those killer scenes.

And speaking of scenes, Millennium Actress has a ton of great ones. Beautiful scenes that will stay with you for a long time, brought to life by exceptional animation - fully exploiting every advantage animation has over traditional cinema in creating an animated movie like no other. The animation is further complemented by Susumu Hirasawas wonderful music, music that breathes of life and magnifically portrays the young actress's life as she progresses through life.

With a wonderful story, humane characters, superb direction and beautiful animation, Millennium Actress is one of those films that simply gets to you. And what more could you ask for?

Less dangling threads to captivate audiences and fewer cornerstone visual showpieces to linger in their memories

[eminkl · 6/10 · 17 April 2020]

Satoshi Kon's directorial follow-up to Perfect Blue is a somewhat lighter, less enveloping picture. We tail a pair of DIY documentarians, enamored with their subject, as they suss out the location of a reclusive former starlet and entice her to share her life's story. Truth and fiction intertwine in the telling of that particular saga, with personal memoirs stirred into various scenes from her best-loved screen performances. The result is a flighty, dreamlike atmosphere, a general easing in and out of the present that doesn't always follow a linear train of thought. It operates with a soft touch, which matches the understated nature of our aging narrator; smoothly straddling genres and decades en route to a destined meeting with a lost love. That puts it on common thematic ground with both Perfect Blue and Paprika (Kon's 2006 swan song), which both toyed with perception and the meeting ground between internal and external realities. Millennium Actress, though, approaches the subject with reduced color and vigor, leaving less dangling threads to captivate audiences and fewer cornerstone visual showpieces to linger in their memories.

How come the artists failed?

[AndreiPavlov · 3/10 · 24 October 2021]

Being quite amazed by beautiful animation, my senses were tortured by an extremely pathetic and unimpressive story, which gets more and more complicated. The punchline of this "epic" is simply ridiculous: the old woman turns out to be a sentimental S&M character who enjoys painful searching of an enigmatic man and that's it. Tears and fears are included.

A 3 out of ten - and those three stars go to the animators' and musicians' efforts only. The script-writers do not deserve any good words at all. But, perhaps, dreaming soft-hearted and over-the-top sentimental young ladies would love this flick. Thanks for attention.

Truth and Facts in a rich screen

[rubbersoul-26239 · 22 February 2023]

Finally I finished watching all films directed by Satoshi Kon.

It was fantastic as a Japanese Animation and a film. I couldn't help making noise at all the cuts because it was so cool. The scene of running on the snow and the scene of changing era were amazing.

On one hand, it was cool and I enjoyable so much but on the other hand it was the most difficult to understand compared to the other Kon's Filmography.

'Truth' for Chiyoko which is not 'fact', are absolutely nonsense as the camera man said. However, she was a film star even after retirement, and she literally told the story.

The important thing is that those nonsense stories were truth for her.

This film well showed the theme of Kon's creations which is 'story as fiction'.