Forum - View topicThe Dreams of Satoshi Kon: Chapter III - Timeless
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protomanblues
 Posts: 14 |
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Thanks for these. I love Satoshi Kon and his work.
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darcerin
Posts: 330 |
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I was so happy to see a part of this series dedicated to M. Actress. I actually had no idea how popular it was! I'm also one of those that can say "this is one of my favorite movies EVER". I believe I'd seen Perfect Blue before I saw M. Actress, and wasn't that impressed with it, but Actress blew me away. Sad to say I have yet to see more of his works beyond that (although I'm going to try!)
Very nicely done Justin! |
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Takeyo
 Posts: 736 |
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Thank you, Justin. I got choked up a bit reading the article. Millennium Actress is not only my favorite Kon endeavor, but also one of my favorite films (animated or not), period.
Also, maybe the folks who post just to announce that they haven't seen whichever Kon work is being covered on a particular day and can't be bothered to even rent it (again, it IS on Netflix) should just steer clear of these particular feedback threads. Their posts contribute nothing and, frankly, it's getting old. |
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reanimator
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Thanks for the info, Justin. I can't imagine how he felt when he saw that hack illustration that decorates both the poster and DVD. It's a total insult. Kon is one heck of an illustrator of his own right. |
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Maur
 Posts: 55 Location: SLC - Not Quite NYC |
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I think I'm with Justin and a few others that Millennium Actress probably is my favorite film by Satoshi Kon. I really enjoyed Paprika but MA really touched me on an emotional level, and those are the kind of films I appreciate most.
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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Wait- we don't know what the key was to? I remember watching it, when she got the key and he said it's to a 'treasure', it panned down to a beat-up stained box. I watched the whole movie beliving that the key was to that box, and it had his paints in it. It never crossed my mind that it could be anything else.
Honestly, just knowing that that wasn't a given makes me want to go watch it again! |
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Gilles Poitras
Posts: 476 Location: Oakland California |
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Easily by favorite film by Kon.
A few years ago I had the honor of introducing it at a special showing sponsored by Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco and San Francisco Public Library. The film does turn up in used record shops so keep an eye out for it. There is a very nice bilingual book on the film with the English title of Chiyoko Millennium Actress, the original is: 千年女優画報 It is cheapest to buy it from Japan as the copies on Amazon US are grossly overpriced. Just search http://www.amazon.co.jp/ for the ISBN-13: 978-4309905112 |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4428 |
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That's how I've seen most of Kon's work. Although, Tokyo Godfathers was on some odd network I hadn't heard of before when I was visiting my parents quite a while ago, but they switched providers so I have no idea what that channel was. I've never been too thrilled about buying used anime myself since the money goes just to the store/person selling it. A re-release of his work would be nice, but I don't know how likely that is. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4610 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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This contains SPOILERS, but I don't want to black out the whole thing.
Somewhere, I forget where, a commentary track or interview on the DVD, an article I read.... somewhere Kon or maybe the co-writer explained that the original idea of the movie was to make a "stereoscopic" movie- a movie that would look different to different people depending on their perception. This is what I find so fascinating about the film, it is not merely a "Story within a Story" conceit- this is really one story but how it is understood can change if you look at it differently. It's more a "Perceptual Organization" Optical Illusion (Rabbit/Duck illusion) or Kaleidoscopic image than stereoscopic. Whose viewpoint are we seeing this from? Are the things we see Chiyoko doing her real life imaginined as movies? Is it all a created fantasy completely made up of movie scenes? Is she living multiple lives in a thousand year curse and each movie/life is a different incarnation from a different life? Of course it should be seen as a combination of all of those and the curse is just part of her confused and desperate yearning, but it CAN be seen in any of these single viewpoints if you look at it in the right angle. And whatever way you look at it, it's a beautiful story. If you want to believe there really is a girl who flies off to space at the end of the movie, it works. If you want to believe it's all the idealized imaginations of the documentarian, it works. There is only one other story structure in any other medium that fascinates me as much, and that's the "World's End" section of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, and even that's just a "Story within a Story" conceit, even if the stories sometimes go about a dozen layers deep at some points (Story of a person telling a story in which the characters of the story tell stories about people telling stories- etc.). Millennium Actress on the other hand really is told in a completely unique way that uses this very complex trick but makes it so cohesive and easy to follow, and that is why I too count it as one of my favorite movies of all time. |
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Julia-the-Great
 Posts: 328 |
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That might have been OVAtion, which is how I saw Tokyo Godfathers. I had to DVR it, because OVAtion tends to show commercials every five minutes and completely ruin a viewing experience. They do show good movies, but when you have to sit four hours to watch Amadeus... yikes. |
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DKL
 Posts: 1945 Location: California, USA |
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Have not read the entire thing (in fact, haven't had time to do much of anything), but the part about the key kinda caught my eye:
Wasn't it the key to the painter's paint case thingy (or whatever was in that case with a lock on it, but I assumed that it was his paint stuff since he said that it was the key to the "most important thing", which I assumed was the tools to make his revolutionary art)? Like... there's a shot after he asks Chiyoko to "guess": she knows the answer (which is kinda implied by the cut to the case and that smirk on her face), but she decides to tell him her guess at a later time (she assumed that she would've been able to)... Uh, that aside, the key isn't so important for what it actually is as for what it stood for, but I'm just kinda chiming in that it was fairly obvious what it was for. |
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DerekTheRed
 Posts: 3544 Location: ::Points to hand:: |
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GATSU
Posts: 15310 |
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If only. They barely advertised it for an Oscar run, and bet it all on House of Sand and Fog. It totally got screwed out of a nomination it deserved. But, at least Rob Marshall was happy. 
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Chrno2
 Posts: 6171 Location: USA |
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Millennium Actress was the first Kon film I ever purchased. It's definitely a film I need to go back and watch.
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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It's in the featurette that accompanies the DVD. The producer told Kon he wanted to make another movie like Perfect Blue -- not a thriller, but one that was stereoscopic. I am a giant sucker for extras and have been watching the interviews as I re-watch the shows, and so far Kon has spoken twice about meaningful coincidences that have occurred around his projects. The one for Millennium Actress was that the cameraman they consulted on how to draw the equipment looked just like the character designs they'd made for Ida. And I do have to recommend, if you're still in a sort of mourning mode like I am, make sure to watch these extras to see the man himself, not just the movies. (You'll be dismayed at how much he smoked...  )
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