Ani-Me #11: Chasing Shadows and Ignoring Selfhood in MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (Patreon)

Welcome to Ani-Me! The Series Where You Make Me Watch Anime! To be clear, you aren’t making me do anything because I have enjoyed every bit of this so far. Apologies for the lack of a poll this time, but I wanted to wrap up the last of Satoshi Kon's features while I was on a roll. That’s right, it’s time for…

Today’s Entry: MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (2001)

Movies are personal. For all my talk of dramatic mechanisms and story process, and as much as all love in the sharing and commiseration of art, it still comes down to that incontrovertible truth. For there is a unique thing that happens between the story on the screen and the spaces of our hearts and minds where the movie becomes truly alive. There they can speak to something deep inside us in a way that feels like meaningful, resonant communication. But sometimes it doesn’t quite resonate with us like that. And after watching his four feature films, I had come to the simple conclusion…

… I don’t think Satoshi Kon is for me.

I feel like I’m couching this statement in pleas of “don’t hate me! don’t hate me! don’t hate me!” because I know how much his work means to so many. But I hope you can understand this difference is largely a matter of the how and why we connect to certain stories, as detailed above. There’s such obvious talent in Kon’s style and he’s responsible for half a dozen moments that will forever be burned into my brain. He just has this uncanny ability to both lull and provoke your senses. And I’m ecstatic that I got to finally watch these features in earnest. But ultimately, there’s always been some element of his work, often near the ending, that really trips me up. Some overt move that makes me crash up against the proverbial rocks - a move which prevents me from being able to embrace each film as a complete narrative. And when it comes to Millennium Actress, I know some of you have mentioned that this one could be the one that really broke through and became the one I loved… And honestly?

Thirty minutes into it I genuinely thought it would be one of my favorite films ever. For it does all this beautiful set-up of creating a driving mystery and gentle affection for Chiyoko, a young girl who has gone on to become the cherished titular actress - and from the onset, I was so excited to hear her epic story. If that weren’t enough, I remember the exact moment the conceit hit (that would be 10 minutes and 51 seconds in), where the film started putting the documentarians IN the memories and I literally slapped my forehead. It’s one of those ingenious little concepts that’s not just fun, but solves sooo many of the inherent problems of cutting back and forth with a narrator telling a nestled story (and how you have to use it surgically so as to not kill momentum). It’s one of those things that seems so obviously RIGHT THERE in hindsight and so utterly reflects the ingenuity of Kon.

But loved all the character work, too. From the set-up scenes with Chiyoko and her mother, the stark poeticism of her first meeting with a literal wounded rebel (!!!), and even the introduction key itself, which is as perfect a McGuffin starter as one can imagine. For it is a device that both initiates the mystery and then drives us deeper into the conceit (like when it quickly flashes and sends them back to feudal japan). The first hour all sets us up so beautifully for the possible catharsis of our final destination. As the rebellious man described a beautiful winter landscape, I literally remember thinking to myself, “this is setting up an amazing journey, isn’t it? One ripe for so many trials and tribulations along the way?” All because that first half hour has this incredible way of bringing us into these stories within the story.

But it never finds its way out.

I remember right when I got to minute 31 in my notes I wrote, “wait, why is this stalling?” which I mean in the story sense. After a brilliantly economical set-up with vivid focus, minutes 30-50 suddenly start spiraling as she’s mostly running around after him, grasping at straws, always through new “movies” and running into slammed doors. I understand the thematic point of this, of course. But any added pointedness of what each of those moments could mean beyond the obvious just gets lost in both the repetition and lack of differentiation. We also completely abandon any interest in her interiority outside of the chase itself - because it’s only about the chase. Things seemingly get back on track at minute 50 when we get into her relationship with the new director / him hiding the key, but it all quickly descends into another semi-formless spiral of her losing the key yet again. And look, I know Kon isn’t a traditional “therefore / but” guy, but usually he’s after SOMETHING specific, even if it’s a changing feeling or emotion whilst going through the journey. But everything here stayed so singularly fixating on this same dramatic move, over and over again, that I had to outright question… Why is he making this obvious choice to languish? By the end I of course realized the truth.

Millennium Actress was only ever going to play one move.

And that move was going to be a rug pull.

After a lifetime of fixating and chasing that one alluring man from her youth, it turns that man is dead. And she’s been ignoring the rest of her life in that hopeless pursuit. Ergo, the reason we’ve spent all this time chasing, chasing, and  CHASING is because that technically-needless chase is the only thing the movie is really about. And in terms of a story structure, this kind of rug pull is one of the most difficult things to pull off in the entire world. Because what you are doing is so inherently cruel and withholding to the viewer. You’re not just setting up a literal key McGuffin that will never find it’s keyhole, you are slapping away catharsis in the most direct and gut-wrenching way possible. And as much as this choice is meant to reflect the unsatisfying realities of life and loss, this is still a film. Meaning it is a construction. A series of choices made an artist and thus the audience will likely get as mad at the storyteller as they would at God for such cruelty, for it is one of the most manipulative of manipulations possible. Which is often why the kinds of artists who opt for the shock of this kind of bait and switch will find their audiences turning them (or get non-bought at festivals). Which is not to say the rug pull is impossible. It’s just that to actually pull it off, you better have a damn good reason.

Luckily, Kon’s too smart and too humane to make such cruelty be the point. In fact, the final ending sequence of her “launching into space” is drenched with both flowing tears and a deeper emotional understanding - one in which Chiyoko accepts the haunting reality of this choice, half-knowing the reality deep down. Kon’s essentially taking the “forever chasing” of his ghost and turning it into a beautiful metaphor about both nostalgic love and what possibly drives our unrelenting human nature as we crest through life upon it. Chiyoko outright concedes this mantra, saying, “after all, what I really love is the pursuit of him.” And thus the film puts a beautiful bow on the woman seemingly at peace with being stuck in the forever longing. And right with her is the documentarian who, like she, is forever stuck in his own chase of her.

This behavior is obviously human. I know this. Loving someone who loves someone else is one of the most common realities of the human experience. It’s part of the way we so often pine for impossibility. The way these metaphorical panes of glass go up between our hearts and people we want to be next to them. But because of this very commonality of youthful experience - it is also one of the most critical to either normalize or grow beyond. It’s kind of cliche to say the following, but so much of adulthood is striving through the difficulty of letting go of the past, embracing the now, coming to peace with the past chapters of our lives, and filling our present space with light as best we can. Easy to say, difficult to achieve, of course. But none the less critical. And while Kon’s characterization certainly understands the tragic nature of Chiyoko endlessly chasing someone who is gone (while somewhat romanticizing the chasing someone who is chasing some else) the film provides virtually none of the distance and perspective on that emotion. It just *is* it. And so, like many of the problems I’ve had with Kon, he ends up telling the story that embodies and even partly romanticizes the thing he’s also partly trying to criticize (perhaps criticize is too strong for this film… let’s go with “highlight the sadness of”?). But this makes sense given that I’ve come to realize how much he’s an artist driven by his love / hate relationship with his fascinations and drives.

To be clear, I fully recognize why this is also so compelling to watch. Kon is so amazingly good at creating a headspace that a viewer can put themselves into and, for lack of a better term, “vibe with.” I don’t say that term facetiously. It’s critical to vibe with things. But in analyzing the work from there, I think there’s a lot of insights to be gained in a point of comparison with my love of other artists. For instance, Hideaki Anno is an artist who also clearly has a love / hate relationship with his drives, but I think he was far more introspective in those dealings, to the point of often being self-scathing. Similarly, why do I sometimes care about narrative “rule-breaking” with Kon, but less so with someone like Hosoda? Perhaps it’s the way that Hosoda’s looseness helps him crest to these bombastic endings that nail the established theme, while Kon’s narrative turns are often designed to provoke and prod. Even his endings often directly try to derail the story in pursuit of surprise, whether it be the reveal of Rumi’s malice, the turn of the baby-snatching mom, or the big rug pull we see here. And maybe it’s just my age talking - in that I’ve seen A LOT of profane, provoking art over the years and have a pretty thick callus when it comes to its effect - but I’m just less interested in these kinds of aggressive choices if they don’t have a laser-focused aim.

Likewise, I can’t help but wonder why Kon skips right over what is, to me, the most interesting part of Chiyoko’s story (AKA this grand new life she has apparently been living for the last 30 years). It’s not that a given film HAS to concentrate on that part, it’s just that I notice how much the film made me interested in her life outside of the chase. To compare this once again, one of the films I couldn’t help but think about as I watched Millennium Actress was James Cameron’s Titantic. Yes, that full-hearted towering testament to uber-function. Perhaps it’s the way it also tells a nestled story from an aging woman reminiscing on a lost love from long ago. But Titanic genuinely made me invested in her unapologetically mawkish romantic saga as it unfolded. All so that we understand why at the end of her life and this grand life, she would genuinely reminisce about this. But when it comes to Chiyoko? Her fixation on one momentary interaction from youth just dwarfs everything in this way that pushes everything else out. To the point that we get the story of a character who becomes so utterly disinterested in her own life. She’s someone who never got past her inciting incident. And this fact is so quite obviously her “core problem” and yet the movie genuinely sees it differently.

As always, the question comes down to “why?”

What is Kon after with this? What is this all really about for him? As I’ve said about so much of his work, the way to see it in it’s best light is not to fixate on the takeaway - but simply note the uncanny way his work doesn’t make you feel alone. Whether it’s the crass found family dynamics of Tokyo Godfathers, the division of our two selves in Paprika, or the daunting societal pressures of sexuality in Perfect Blue. And here, it’s practically a loving embrace for someone trapped in the ladder of chases. But there’s something that still gives me pause about its portrayal. For all the introspection of a literal interview, there’s ultimately still something so non-introspective of Chiyoko herself. Which means I can’t help but worry that this entire construction of Millennium Actress is a romanticized projection on the part of Genya’s character.

I mean, we know this because the film is literally copping to it with the entire thrust / framing device / everything about it. By the end, Genya’s outright tells her that he loves her. But I mean it in the sense that this is also a projection of Kon and the male audience’s view by proxy, too. That effectively, this is his fantasy of what “her fantasy” would be. I mean, it’s literally a grand one about a literal good-looking wounded rebel making impossible promises - and he only seems to understand her fixation on him in the grandest cosmic sense - while understanding that is own is only to put her on the pedestal of pedestals. There’s no anger about that dynamic, thankfully- but something keeps making my brain itch about the portrayal. For it feels like the most romantic reasons possible one might not be loved back. And one that is so grand that it could even be viewed as an inverse meta-construction about the fantasy of being chased. There is something truly sticky about this, but I admit that is an outright projection on my part.

The real truth is impossible to say.

And  however much I get tripped up on Kon’s work, I will never deny that he has this incredible ability to tap into the most vivid cinematic emotions. The art, and the world of cinema, is better for having him be in it. And hey, maybe if I watched his work in my 20’s it would speak to me in a completely different way that was more reflective of my feelings then. But from where I am today, I’m just admitting that he ultimately doesn’t speak for me or even to me. And that’s okay.

Because movies are personal.

And we ultimately connect to them on that personal level. Millennium Actress clearly has so much empathy for those who feel like they’ve never quite started their “real” life, or are forever stuck in the pursuit of chase. But it’s honestly hard for me to connect to that because, well, I feel like I’ve lived a thousand mistake-filled lifetimes with a thousand different lessons. I’m just so far from removed from Chiyoko’s headspace. And as I watch her get so stuck I can’t help but want to run into the screen and shout “Hey there! It’s really okay, you don’t have to do this! Come see!” Which only helps speak to how impossibly sad her choices make me. In a way, this makes the tragic effect of the film undeniable. But this is about the space beyond mere effect. Because we can’t help but filter movies through our own understandings and worries. But it’s not that I ever want films to parrot my personal views and back up what I already think. Often it’s the opposite. And incredible films the Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night, or Malick’s A Hidden Life, (which I finally watched yesterday) can subtly blast my assumptions of “what’s right” to the damn wind.

Which brings us to that crucial crux. I believe my ongoing trouble with Kon’s work is not that his view of people and the world is different from my own, it’s that I can’t grasp onto anything personally meaningful in the way his provocative choices hit, nor challenge me. And it’s not from a lack of familiarity with those choices, either. It’s that his work seemed so trapped in a lot of thoughts, feelings, and places that I was at a long time ago (along with some of the troubling takeaways I had then, too). And so, looking from where I am now, I can’t help but want a little more cognizance from his work about how to help people with the way out. If only because I know how painful it really can be - and how much relief came in the leaving… But I dunno.

Maybe it’s just personal.

And it comes with the utter acknowledgement that all this is relatively moot - for what I really want more than anything - is to know where he would have gone next.

Rest in peace, you vivid soul.

<3HULK