Millennium Actress

Millennium Actress
Directed by	Satoshi Kon
Produced by	Taro Maki
Written by	Sadayuki Murai Satoshi Kon
Starring	Miyoko Shoji Mami Koyama Fumiko Orikasa Shōzō Iizuka
Music by	Susumu Hirasawa
Cinematography	Hisao Shirai
Editing by	Satoshi Terauchi
Studio	Madhouse
Distributed by	The Klockworx Co., Ltd Go Fish Pictures Bio Rex Distribution Manga Entertainment
Release date(s)	July 28, 2001 (2001-07-28) (Fantasia) September 14, 2002 (2002-09-14) (Japan)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Millennium Actress (千年女優, Sennen Joyū^?) is a 2001 Japanese anime by director Satoshi Kon and animated by the Studio Madhouse. It tells the story of a documentary filmmaker investigating the life of an elderly actress in which reality and cinema become blurred.

Plot

The narrative style is complex and interwoven in the style of "play within a play".

The film depicts a director, Genya Tachibana, who is working on a documentary about a famous actress, Chiyoko Fujiwara. In her old age, Chiyoko has withdrawn from public life, but Tachibana slowly draws her out. As he talks to her, the story of her life, from teenage schoolgirl to middle-aged superstar, gradually unfolds, illustrated through flashbacks interspersed with segments from her films. Her life spans the tumultuous period surrounding World War II, while her characters in movies span a time period from the Sengoku period to a futuristic space age.

As a child in the 1930s, at the time of the fascist government, Chiyoko helps a dissident artist escape from the military. She becomes attracted to him; however, the next day he is forced to flee again. She finds that he has left behind a key to his suitcase of art supplies and she becomes an actress to travel to different lands in the hopes of finding him and returning the key. Although she never finds her lost love, she insists on continuing the search. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Chiyoko's love was executed by the Kenpeitai. Tachibana knew this, but has never been able to tell Chiyoko. As Chiyoko finishes her story, an earthquake occurs, injuring her. Tachibana takes her to the hospital, where she reveals that "it was chasing after him" that she truly loves. It is implied that she dies at the end of the movie, continuing her quest to find him in the next life.

However, this story is complicated by the fact that most of the stories from Chiyoko's life are illustrated with a scene from one of her films, rather than a true flashback, so that it is difficult to distinguish reality from fiction. In addition, Tachibana and his cameraman appear in films, and actually participate in their events in various guises. Tachibana always casts himself in her memories as her self-sacrificing protector, a role he played in real life during an accident on the set that nearly killed her.

Cast

• Chiyoko Fujiwara is portrayed by three actresses during her lifetime:
  • Miyoko Shōji voices Chiyoko as an elderly woman
  • Mami Koyama voices Chiyoko as a middle-aged woman
  • Fumiko Orikasa voices Chiyoko as a teenage girl
• Shōzō Iizuka as Genya Tachibana
  • Masamichi Satō voices Genya as a young man
• Masaya Onosaka as Kyōji Ida
• Shōko Tsuda as Eiko Shimao
• Hirotaka Suzuoki as Junichi Otaki
• Tomie Kataoka as Mino
• Takkō Ishimori as the Chief Clerk
• Kan Tokumaru as the Ginei Managing Director
• Hisako Kyōda as Chiyoko's mother
• Kōichi Yamadera as the Man with the Key
• Masane Tsukayama as the Man with the Scar

Additional voices were provided by Mitsuru Ogata, Tomohisa Asō, Kōji Yusa, Makoto Higo, Kōichi Sakaguchi, Tomoyuki Shimura, Akiko Kimura, Tomo Saeki, Hirofumi Nojima, Ruri Asano, Hiroko Ōnaka, Yoshinori Sonobe and Yumiko Daikoku.

Production

Following the release of Satoshi Kon's previous film Perfect Blue, Kon considered adapting the Yasutaka Tsutsui novel Paprika (1993) into his next film. However, these plans were stalled when the distribution company for Perfect Blue, Rex Entertainment, went bankrupt.^[1] Millennium Actress had the same estimated budget as Perfect Blue (approximately 120,000,000 yen).^[2] The screenplay was written by Sadayuki Murai,^[3] who utilized a seamless connection between illusion and reality to create a "Trompe-l'œil kind of film".^[4] Millennium Actress is the first Satoshi Kon film to feature Susumu Hirasawa, whom Kon was a long-time fan of, as composer.^[5]

Reception

Millennium Actress was very favorably received by critics, gaining a 94% "fresh" rating at RottenTomatoes.com.^[6] Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan said of the film "as a rumination on the place movies have in our personal and collective subconscious, Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before".^[7] Kevin M. Williams of the Chicago Tribune gave the movie 4 stars and put his feelings for the film this way: "A piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best... It's animated, but it's human and will touch the soul of anyone who has loved deeply".^[8]

Box office performance

Source	Gross (USD)	Number of Screens
United States	$37,285	6
United States Opening Weekend	$18,732	6	[9]

Commercially, the film performed modestly on its US release, earning $37,285 during its 3 week release. The film was shown almost exclusively in New York and Los Angeles, and received a minimal advertising campaign from Go Fish Pictures.

Awards

Millennium Actress received the Grand Prize in the Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival, tying with Spirited Away. Additionally, it won the awards of Best Animation Film and Fantasia Ground-Breaker at the 2001 Fantasia Film Festival. It was awarded the Feature Film Award at the 8th Animation Kobe. The movie took home the prestigious Ofuji Noburo Award at the 2002 Mainichi Film Awards, and was honored with the Orient Express Award at the 2001 Festival de Cine de Sitges in Spain. The film was nominated for four Annie Awards in 2004, including Outstanding Direction and Writing. It was also promoted by its studio as a contender for the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but it was not nominated. The film is ranked in the Top 50 Animated Films on the Internet Movie Database and has consistently remained within the Top 25.^[10]

See also

• Japanese films of 2001

References

1. ^ "INTERVIEW Satoshi Kon Part2". Midnight Eye. November 20, 2006. http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/satoshi_kon2.shtml. Retrieved August 26, 2010. 
2. ^ "Interview de Satoshi Kon sur le site Catsuka". December 10, 2006. http://www.catsuka.com/focuson.php?id=itw_satoshikon. Retrieved August 2010. 
3. ^ "INTERVIEW Satoshi Kon". Midnight Eye. November 2, 2001. http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/satoshi_kon.shtml. Retrieved August 26, 2010. 
4. ^ "Director Satoshi Kon Interview DVJ2.0". http://www.dvdvisionjapan.com/actress2.html. Retrieved August 26, 2010. 
5. ^ "Interview 23 2007年6月 アメリカから『パプリカ』について". http://konstone.s-kon.net/modules/interview/index.php/content0025.html. 
6. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes - Millennium Actress". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/millennium-actress/. Retrieved 24 August 2010. 
7. ^ Turan, Kenneth. "Millennium Actress Movie Review". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 16 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071016220159/http://calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-kenny12sep12,2,5118759.story?coll=cl-mreview. Retrieved 14 September 2007. 
8. ^ Williams, Kevin. "Movie Review: Millennium Actress". Chicago Tribune. http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/movies/mmx-030911-movies-review-kmw-millenniumactress,0,1707912.story. Retrieved 14 September 2007. ^{[dead link]}
9. ^ "IMDb Sennen joyû (2001) - Box office / business". IMDb.com. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291350/business. Retrieved 2007-09-14. 
10. ^ "IMDb Best / Worst "Animation" Titles". IMDb.com. http://www.imdb.com/chart/animation. Retrieved 2007-09-14. 

External links

• Animax's official website for Sennen Joyū (Millennium Actress) (Japanese)
• Chiyoko, the Millennium Actress
• Millennium Actress at Keyframe - the Animation Resource
• Millennium Actress at the Internet Movie Database
• Millennium Actress at AllRovi
• "千年女優 (Sennen Joyū)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/2002/dz002830.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-21.