Millennium Actress

I've now seen everything that Satoshi Kon's directed. He's one of my two favorite anime creators, so I guess I'm happy with that. Actress hit me less hard than any of his other work, which was either more profoundly moving, more inventive structurally, or just more immediately disturbing. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the film, which is a perfectly nice story told in a unique way. It's about a small film crew that goes to interview an old woman who suddenly quit her successful acting career thirty years earlier. She tells them her life story, and things quickly become interesting when you see how exactly that story will be shown. The producer and cameraman are thrust into the past, watching the early events of her life actually play out, and once she starts acting things get really interesting as things are seen through the lens of her various roles.

This isn't actually happening of course, as they're still there listening to her in her living room. It's just a really clever way to do flashbacks that turn it from a boring trope into something unusual and occasionally fascinating. It's sort of funny that this and Tokyo Godfathers were the last two Kon creations that I saw, because they're smack in the middle of his career so far and fairly non-insane, which led to a narrow view of what his range as a filmmaker really is. Actress isn't without some issues, as there were times when I found myself wondering what the point actually was. Things pick up once certain connections are revealed though, and the ending is as poignant and beautiful as you could ever hope from a story like this. It's sort of predictable in a way, but only because it's so fitting. Definitely worth seeing.