'Millennium Actress (千年女優)' by Kon Satoshi (今敏)

I rewatched Director Kon Satoshi's 今敏 Millennium Actress 千年女優 over the new year. If you have not seen it, many a review on the internet would do a better job of introducing this animated film to you. As usual, I will just go about commenting on it in my desultory way:

First of all, the idea that anticipation of or longing for something is better than its realization or fullfillment is wonderfully captured in the following dialogue between the Man with the Key 鍵の君 and Chiyoko (the heroine):

「満月。」
「満月は明日だな。でも僕はこの時のつきが一番好きだ。満月なら、次の日からかけってしまう。１４日の月には、まだ明日がある、明日という希望が。」
('The full moon.'
'The full moon comes tomorrow. But I like the moon at this time best. The full moon begins the wane from the next day, but there is a tomorrow to the moon on the fourteenth. The hope that is tomorrow.)

This is the idea that runs throughout the whole animated film, and I am sure that idea has a long pedigree in traditional Japanese aesthetics. Before I return to this point, I would like to mention in passing the ubiquitous crane in the film:

i) It is on the blue screen of Chiyoko's living room.

ii) It is also on the other wall in the same living room.

iii) There is is again in an old photo of Chiyoko as a baby.

iv) And in a photo of her as a child.

v) In a scene from one of Chiyoko's 'films'.

vi) And again -

vii) And again -

The crane, as we know, is Japan's national bird. It is also a fitting symbol in the context of the plot in that:

i) In fables, it is said that a crane has the lifespan of a thousand years, which refers to the 'millennium' 千年 part of the title.

ii) It is a symbol of fidelity as cranes are said to have only one mate in their lives.

iii) It is a popular symbol of peace in the post-war period.

Anyway, so what is Chiyoko's soul journey about? The Chiyoko in real life chases after a man whose name she does not know and whose face she has gradually come to forget as she ages. The only thing she knows about him is that he is a painter wanted by the secret police. In their all-too-brief time together, he gives her a key to a suitcase which is said to hold something that is most important. She asks him to wait till tomorrow (ie. the full moon) to tell her what that thing is. But of course, before they get a chance to meet again, he already has to run off because the police has managed to traced his whereabouts. Chiyoko never sees him again. But in the course of her life, she comes to understand that that 'important thing' is.

The Chiyoko in films is likewise always chasing after a man. I would like to call that man her animus. He is like a spearhead that stirs her to activitiy - a spirit that gives her direction and passion in her art. Whoever the Man with the Key may have been, over the years he has become more of a soul-image rather than a real person in Chiyoko's psyche. Her art blossoms because of that soul-image. As for that 'important thing' - I believe it isn't love per se, but the idea that it is better to long for something than possessing what you long for. As Chiyoko says at the end of the film:

だって、あたし、あの人を追いかけるのがあたしは好きなんだもん。
After all, it is the chasing after him that I really love.

Kudos to Director Kon for expressing this aesthetic concept (extremely dear to me) through such an engaging and magnificently directed animated film.