Japanese movie star Chiyoko Fujiwara retired thirty years ago, at the height of her acting career. When Ginei Studios' old properties are torn down, documentary director Genya Tachibana decides to commemorate one of Japan's great studios by interviewing its greatest asset, the enigmatic Ms. Fujiwara. Tachibana hauls his reluctant young cameraman up to her remote mountain home. With a key in hand, Tachibana hopes to unlock the secrets of the mysterious actress who defines a studio and a half a century of Japanese film.

Satoshi Kon's animated Millenium Actress unlocks the secrets to far more than one person's life.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHIYOKO FUJIWARA

Now in her seventies, Chiyoko has become something of a hermit. She agrees to the interview only because Tachibana he has brought her an old key. She touches it tenderly, and tells her interviewer that it is the key to the most important thing in the world. She begins her filmed memoirs with her childhood memories, particularly memories of the unnamed man who left her the key and told her of its importance before he disappeared. All her life, she has been searching not to find the important thing it unlocks, but to return the key to its rightful owner.

A LITHE BUT STURDY STRUCTURE

It's tidy symmetry: Tachibana pursues the Chiyoko backwards through her past, and Chiyoko pursues the man with the key forward, through her life story and her films. Her films and her life blur together, with Tachibana and his young cameraman observing in the middle.

Chiyoko may not be a star in the eyes of the young, but her age has not dimmed her luminous presence. As she weaves through the details of her life, skeptical Ida is literally drawn in, and Tachibana throws himself into supporting roles in her films. When a hag-specter appears on the set of a period drama, it's difficult to tell whether she is part of the film or part of Chiyoko's memory.

Millennium Actress is indeed about the actress, but it's also about the times she defines. In her retrospective, she speaks lines costumed for different eras of Japanese film--what looks to us like Seven Samurai through Godzilla, but almost all of the dialogue spoken on sound stages could refer to her own life. Within the history of Japanese cinema lies a history of Japan: the Warring States period, the Heian era that inspired Princess Mononoke's setting, the tumultous Bakumatsu, the Westernized Meiji, the early Showa era, World War II, and the occupation.

This plot structure appears delicate, and it must have been difficult to build--but like a skyscraper designed to sway in earthquakes, it moves smoothly and never loses its foundation.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

Director Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) has a good eye. In the intriguing (and not too horribly spoiler-ridden) making-of featurette, he discusses the phenomenal team he pulled together. He and Sadayuki Murai (a screenwriter who worked on both Perfect Blue and the Cowboy Bebop TV series) collaborated on the script, writing a story that could be viewed from many angles. The colors vary by from sepia tones to rich, vibrant color--sometimes it depends on the actual time period, sometimes on the setting of one of Chiyoko's film. One particularly beautiful segue covers several of Chiyoko's roles and the settings of those films in one continuous take. It would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to do that with traditional animation, but Mad House's work shows none the slick quality expected of computer animation--in fact, it echoes the realistic look of completely hand-drawn Jin-Roh.

All the voice acting is excellent, but a few highlights stand out. Getting Chiyoko's life journey right took three voice actresses: Fumiko Orikasa (Victoria Seras in Hellsing) as young Chiyoko, veteran Mami Koyama (Kei in Akira, Esmeraude in Sailor Moon) as mature Chiyoko, and Miyoko Shoji as elderly Chiyoko. Koichi Yamadera (Spike in Cowboy Bebop, Jubei in Ninja Scroll) turns in a moving performance as the unnamed man with the key. Perhaps because this is so clearly an art movie, Dreamworks did not dub this film into English.

Susumu Hirasawa's soundtrack is both a plus and a minus. His style is instantly familiar, but it wasn't until the end credits, on which he sings, that I said, "Oh, that's the guy who did the Berserk soundtrack." Though unusually loud for a Japanese movie, the Millenium Actress soundtrack no louder than that of a typical American movie. I like the sound, which often mixes heavy drums (taiko, perhaps?) with obviously synthesized noises, but I felt that the more techno-sounding pieces didn't always match the pseudo-historical settings. In a few years, this soundtrack may seem dated.

There is little onscreen violence in Millennium Actress, but some of the war images are disturbing. No sex or swearing, either. I wouldn't show this to a young child, but that's just because I think they'd be confused by the unstuck-in-time plot or bored by the grownup talk.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD

Millennium Actress is beautifully crafted as a story and as a film, but there's more to it than fine workmanship. It is a deeply human film. Chiyoko, unlike so many fictional characters, never runs from anything. She run towards things: towards the man she's lost, towards the past she's never completed, towards us.

Although Tachibana looks less spectacular than the lovely and dignified actress, he's no less important. Her work has given him understanding of history and life, and now he strives to understand her. Each of them has that special pure and unshakable love that one can harbor only for someone who remains an enigma.

Millennium Actress is the first film I've seen in a long time that I wanted to immediately watch again. Of course I'd enjoy the brain-teaser of watching it and figuring out which scenes on the movie sets were really scenes, and which were Chiyoko's life. I'd admire the cat's-cradle plot structure all the more. I'd enjoy the art and the performances more fully. As Koyama says in the featurette, Kon's love of this film is perceptible.

Mostly, though, I just want to see it again. Knowing the plot and appreciating the technical aspects doesn't detract from the emotional impact of watching a life. It's a life that's more than one life--it's the lives of the heroines of the plays within the play, and it's the lives of everyone Chiyoko has touched, and it's the life of Japan.

That one life is life itself. Perhaps every single life is. If Millennium Actress can make me feel that, perhaps the film itself is a key to the most important thing in the world.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8