Sometimes when I watch movies, I have trouble remembering that what’s happening on screen isn’t real. Yes, the story itself is fictional to varying degrees, but the emotions, the drama, the comedy – there’s a distinct human connection to all of these movies that play on the big screen. Animated or live action, film is a unique medium that possesses the quality of storytelling and documenting what’s occurring, played back for us viewers to engage in and experience full throttle. It’s the same reason some people can’t stand horror films, violence, sex, social awkwardness, or any distinct characteristic of certain genres – it becomes too real to see it in playback, regardless of the reality that we occupy; it’s also the same reason why we sometimes live vicariously through the characters that grace the screen, becoming inspired to change, act differently, or even emulate certain characteristics that we admire so much. This second reason is what Satoshi Kon masterfully explores in Millennium Actress, released in 2001.
If there was ever a film that demonstrated Satoshi Kon’s mastery of depicting dreams in conjunction with reality, I would argue Millennium Actress is one of the best examples in his filmography thus far. Compared to the exuberant and visually astounding sequences of inanity in Paprika and Paranoia Agent, Millennium Actress is more subdued, blurring the distinction between dreams and reality much more subtly and naturally and presenting stronger thematics and questions that result in a much more cohesive and moving story.
The story focuses around Chiyoko Fujiwara, a retired and reclusive actress who details her life and career to director, Genya Tachibana, and a cameraman, Kyōji Ida. With Tachibana’s insistence and enthusiasm, Chiyoko opens up about her childhood, and the events that led her from the beginnings of a modest child actor to a Japanese film icon before, during, and after the years of WWII. Interestingly, Chiyoko does not directly tell her life as events that actually took place, but through her acting roles that coincided with the different time periods during the release of her films, respectively. Moreover, Genya and Kyōji are often featured in her flashbacks, with Genya prominently taking the roles of her self-sacrificing savior and Kyōji still filming the events with his camera, in normal attire and all. The one thread that holds all these different stories together is Chiyoko’s lifelong quest to find her first love, a young artist she helped hide from the police during the fascist government of 1930s Japan. He leaves her a key to his art supplies, which she keeps for her entire acting career until her very last movie, the point where she immediately retires and distances herself from society for reasons I will not reveal here.
Millennium Actress, at its core, is a love story, but goes even further in exploring the blending of reality and fiction in films, the voyeuristic function of filming and watching these narratives, and how one may vicariously live through the very roles and characters they act out and watch on the reels of footage. Moreover Kon’s work is a masterful exploration of one’s hopes and dreams perpetuating their motivations and actions in real life, and the psychological effect of events in real life may simultaneously influence the universes of fiction. Most ingeniously, Kon never makes a active point of differentiating between dream and reality, leaving us to ponder about what is actually Chiyoko’s acting role and what is actually happening around her.
Recurring figures pop up in Chiyoko’s life story, either in the form of acting roles, real life personalities, or both: at times, it’s difficult to tell if what’s happening is a recollection of Chiyoko’s filmography or real life situation, given how the film cuts from one event and film to the next. These cuts are simultaneously abrupt and seamless, creating further ambiguity at times as to whether or not what’s happening to Chiyoko is just a film role or something that actually happened. Chiyoko’s acting rival is simultaneously a maternal authority and jealous colleague; the scar-faced policeman who pursued the young artist in real life frequently comes back as a hard-faced and cruel antagonist; and an old woman near a spinning wheel taunts Chiyoko of her impending doom and suffering, claiming the actress is destined to pursue a love tied to loneliness and despair. These projections of Chiyoko have fictional and reality weight, echoing from her real life acquaintances and psychological troubles that drive her to act so emotionally and effectively in her film roles. In fact, Chiyoko’s first director advises her to act from the heart, to take real life counterparts and incorporate them into the characters she must act out: this sets the stage for the growing and continuous ambiguity of Chiyoko’s life and filmography, and whether or not she ever differentiated between what was happening in real time and on screen.
This ambiguity is best demonstrated when Chiyoko is thrown into jail and interrogated by the police, only to be released when her true love is captured and proclaims he knows nothing about her; before she can see his face again, the police close the doors on her, locking her out from ever seeing him again. It’s a heartbreaking scene, like watching someone so close to their life dream suddenly having it swiped away from them in an instant of cold cruelty. This scene is one of the more difficult scenes to comprehend: her acting rival is present, condescending and blunt as per usual, and the scar-faced policeman is unkind as seen previously; however, she never sees the artist’s face, leading us to further question whether or not she was actually thrown into jail, acting out a part, or possibly knew what happened to her love but never wanted to admit it consciously. Additionally, Genya and Kyōji are in normal attire, and Genya is unusually uninvolved with what’s happening to Chiyoko in the flashback.
At first, the cut to this jail scene seems like another jump to one of Chiyoko’s films, but after some time it becomes ambiguous: is what’s happening real or fiction? Or is it simply a emotional recollection of what happened to her in real life? It’s difficult to say what really happened, but the scene presents another question that I found interesting: that is, is there a logical consistency when we recollect and retell our memories and the events that affected us personally?
Memory is always a difficult thing account for, especially with regards to accuracy. How can we be for sure that the events that happened to us previously actually happened 100%? The answer: we can’t. There are details missed, or mis-remembered, or purposely forgotten for our own psychological sake. Memories cannot be accounted for logically; they can, however, be accounted for emotionally, which is what Kon demonstrates so profoundly and sympathetically when Chiyoko recounts her life and filmography, and the ambiguity in between these two distinctions.
Like the key she keeps as a torchlight to her first love, Chiyoko’s emotions are what bind together everything that happens in Millennium Actress. The sudden leaps between scenes, the curious blur between fact and fiction – the only thing keep her, Genya, Kyōji and us in the loop is how strongly emotional Chiyoko is about everything that as happened to her, and most strongly her love for a man that she never saw again in her earthly lifetime. And as we peek into and document her memories, there is essentially a voyeuristic aspect that is inherent to all narratives, documentaries, retellings and biographies; that by coming out of reclusion and revealing a bit of herself in the most emotionally honest sense, Chiyoko highlights the voyeuristic quality of human curiosity and our desire to explores lives outside of our own. This is the genius of Satosi Kon’s tragic and beautifully sympathetic film, Millennium Actress.
*Note: I found out today while writing this that Satoshi Kon suddenly passed away at the age of 47 46 on August 23rd 24th, 2010. I’m shocked and extremely saddened by this news, as he was slowly becoming a favorite director and writer of mine, and I was really looking forward to his upcoming film The Dream Machine. He had a thirteen year career in anime, animating, writing and directing a total of nine films and television series, which include Paprika, Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paranoia Agent. My greatest condolences go out to him; he was a fine director and visionary who explored the maddening and enlightening aspects of psychology, dreams, and the blur between reality and fiction, and more so created strong female leads and characters consistently in all the works I’ve seen so far. It’s always sad to hear a relatively young and exceptional visionary die so suddenly; I can only hope his work will demonstrate for future generations his ingenuity and originality that made him such a distinctive presence in anime and film.
A Visual Progression of Millennium Actress and some explanations
Genya and Kyōji within Chiyoko’s recollection, breaking the fourth wall and demonstrating the voyeuristic aspects of filming and narratives, fact or fiction. The fourth wall is frequently broken with Genya’s and Kyōji’s presence, which can be seen in subsequent images…
This sequence is one of the earlier demonstrations of Chiyoko’s real life events blending into her acting roles, given how the scene in the above images transitions abruptly and seamlessly into the scene into the last image…
Genya is frequently Chiyoko’s self-sacrificing persona in her recollections, as demonstrated here. Kyōji is still himself, attire and camera and all.
Genya and Chiyoko acting out the scene in real life, much to Kyōji’s chagrin.
The scar-faced police officer frequents Chiyoko’s recollections as a cruel and unkind persona. He’s always looking for a man she helped in real life or in film.
Eiko, Chiyoko’s acting rival, also frequents the recollections as a maternal-like authority who is more worldly, condescending, and jealous of Chiyoko’s youth and naivety.
The pinnacle scene that really emphasizes the ambiguity between fact and fiction: we’re never quite sure if what happened here is a film role, a real life event, or both.
The old woman at the spinning wheel recurs as a proselytizing entity that foretells of Chiyoko’s emotional suffering. I wondered if Kon consciously referenced Sleeping Beauty for the spinning motif, or if it has some other literary or symbolic significance. The other likely reference is that to Buddhism, which philosophizes that patterns of humor behavior are like a wheel with eight levels, and to reach enlightenment you must break the wheel and overcome the eight levels of materialistic desires and earthly values.
One of the best demonstrations of Chiyoko’s projection of Eiko being an extension of her own mother, as the above image transitions suddenly into the below image…
The old woman again, who haunts Chiyoko as potentially the elderly appearance and future of the actress.
Genya as a young man on set, and as himself in real life. At this point, it becomes obvious that Genya’s projections into Chiyoko’s recollections very much have real life foundations, as we’ll see soon…
The above three images demonstrate Kon’s blurring of reality and memory, and again reiterates how documenting and watching such a personal story is voyeuristic on our part.
Genya’s recollection, paired up with that of Chiyoko’s, further demonstrates his outside knowledge of Chiyoko’s memories, and what he knows that she doesn’t. The first image is an older Genya looking back at his younger self, as depicted in second image of this pair of screenshots.
The train incident happens again, which we saw previously in an earlier recollection of Chiyoko’s. Even the framing is distinctly similar (see above images of a younger Chiyoko on a train if you’d like to see the similarities)
The above images are a fantastic sequence that really demonstrate Kon’s mastery of blending memory, fiction and fact into a illogical yet cohesive progression. It’s really quite an extraordinary feat, given how everything is tied together my Chiyoko’s emotional conviction. Genya makes another appearance, this time as an extension of his real emotions for her in real life.
The real life event where Genya saved Chiyoko from an earthquake accident, thereby establishing his previous projections with an real life foundation as the self-sacrificing savior.
The recurring old woman that Chiyoko sees, proclaiming her final taunt that drives Chiyoko to retire from acting.
Genya’s and Chiyoko’s recollections converging into present day, where she remembers him as the young man who saved her from the earthquake accident.
The last sequence that blurs Chiyoko’s reality and memories into a last farewell, where she believes she’ll continue looking for her love in the next life. This is a sad and beautiful ending to a mesmerizing story, with numerous other thematics I’m sure I’ve yet to explore with subsequent viewings.