Rewatching Kon Satoshi's 'Millennium Actress': An Analysis

I rewatched Millennium Actress over the weekend (see my previous post from over a year ago here), and was amazed all over again at how great an animated film it is. Certainly it is a film one gets more out of with every viewing, and here is what I got out of it this time:

[Massive spoilers ahead]

1) The thing about this movie is that you are never sure what you see is:

i) A real movie Chiyoko has starred in;
ii) A subjective fantasy Chiyoko experienced;
iii) The historical/objective reality Chiyoko experienced

For example, the scene where she chases after the painter. We know that it was something that veritably happened in Chiyoko's real life. But we also learn that the same scenario later appears in a movie she starred in.

This is fair enough, as movie plots may well be some sort of recycling bin of real-life cliches. But as you follow her in those surreal footages, you realize that there seems to be some sort of wish-fulfillment, fears, premonitions and forebodings that must have welled up from within her mind. For example:

i) Being told that he is alive after all.

ii) Meeting him again under deja-vu circumstances and worrying if he actually remembers her.

iii) The premonition or foreboding that he is caught by the police after all (although she cannot confirm this in reality until many years later).

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The thing is, we are never directly told the endings of any of Chiyoko's movies: Do they end happily or tragically? I am guessing that there is a mix of both. What is her subjective experience in acting out those endings in her movies? I could only wonder.

2) If you look at how they structure those surreal footages carefully, you would see that Chiyoko chases after the painter primarily in the past (ie. the historical Japan before the end of the WWII), and also a little bit in the future (ie. the space drama where she flies a rocket).  This may be a deliberate statement that her love could only be in the past, with the possibility of reunion in the far off future (ie. the afterlife), but never in the present. It's like the whole weight of this past, fleeting love that was gone before she had the chance to realize that it was love eats up her present.

It's not like no surreal footage is set in Japan in the Showa Era (ie. the real time she lived in as a grown-up woman). When she runs off to Hokkaido, Tachibana appears as a truck driver from one of her movies. But in that instance, it seems that she is running away from any real news of the real painter from the repentant police. Why does she not ask the former police what happened to the painter? My guess is that she gallops off because i) she is seized by the image invoked by the words he used to describe the painting he never managed to show her and ii) she does not want to know the truth. In the end, the former police tells only Tachibana that the painter was tortured to death, and Tachibana never breaks the news to Chiyoko.

What puzzles me is the painting she sees at the end of her 'trip' to Hokkaido. It is too much of a coincidence to be something lifted entirely from one of her movies, and the painting seems to be an image that welled up from within her mind. She must have wondered many times what the painter's sketch she never got to see must be like. But why the image of the painter walking off in the same landscape and disappearing?

My guess is that the painting is a metaphorical representation that time was playing a cruel trick on them all along: He was there in that landscape at some point in time, but he is no longer there. She may pursue him across physical space (ie. taking the train etc), but she cannot pursue him across time except in her fantasies. The timing, in other words, is always wrong:

First when she runs after his train. (Though one wonders if she had not stopped to pick up the key, would she have caught up with him?)

And after WWII when she revisits her family's confectionery store, where she sees his picture of her among the ruins. It it must have been drawn not on the night the painter stayed at the storehouse (she would have discovered it sooner), but some time afterwards when he returned to search for her. (If she had stayed at the confectionery store instead of going off the Manchuria, would she have met him again?)

So life is full of irrevocable choices along the river of time.

That was a heck of a powerful scene too. There is a glimmer of hope, and yet there is this unspeakable cruelty as Chiyoko stares at an image of her younger self. He does not leave his name and he does not even know her name (even in his letter to her, he addresses her as 'the kind girl' or 親切な娘さん). She never learns his name either yet she never gives up chasing him. Strictly speaking, there is not even a verb in the sentence he leaves behind - 'some time, for sure'. These are not vows of love per se, but more powerful than any vows of love if you ask me, which brings me to my next point -

3) The movie really boils down to two promises:

i) The promise made by the painter to Chiyoko that he will tell her what is the important thing that is locked by the key.
ii) The promise made by Chiyoko to the painter (albeit unilaterally) that she will go to find.

When you think about it - perhaps that is what love boils down to after all. Love is a serious promise made by one person to another. If the love is mutual, it is a serious promise in exchange for a serious promise. The manifestation of that love is in honouring the promise. (This seems to be a point that is largely missed by relationship advice columns and most people in that dating game in these permissive times for that matter.)

But you know, as I said in my earlier analysis - this film also brings to light an aesthetic concept that it is better to long for something than being fulfilled in what you long for. In other words, anticipation is better than fulfillment. 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.

4) If you look at Chiyoko's wedding picture carefully, you will notice that her mother has died, meaning that she has no family in the world. This may form a subtext as to why Chiyoko chose to marry Otaki apart from her self-professed realization that she cannot go on like a dreamy young girl any longer.

We are not directly told how happy she is in her marriage. However, at the scene where Chiyoko discovers that Otaki has stolen the key from her, all he could do is to grin sheepishly. One would have thought that the reaction of a husband would have been more along the lines of: 'Why are you still thinking about this man? You are married to me!' So I suppose there must have always been an understanding in the marriage that he is... second place.

I like how the camera is fixed on Chiyoko's face with soft lights emitting from behind at that scene. We are not shown directly that what she sees is the missing key, but we are cued in by her facial expression that what she sees must be it.

In fact, one wonders where the light comes from. From the start, one would have thought that the light was natural sunlight in the afternoon or something. Then the source of light is abruptly turned off at the same time she learns the truth. This is a stone that kills two birds: there is the dramatic effect, and then there is the hint that this scene actually takes place in a studio rather than her home. I think the whole direction of the scene may be statement that the marriage was play-acting all along.

5) I am curious about Eiko's comment that chasing after the painter keeps Chiyoko young, as well as Chiyoko's own admission that she quit movie-making because she does not want to painter to see her grow old.

There are several parts to this:

i) Chiyoko stays in movie-making as long as it is a means for the painter to find her.

ii) Chiyoko 'stays young' by chasing after the painter in much of her youth.

iii) Chiyoko (willfully or not) believes well into her middle-age that the painter is still alive.

iv) Chiyoko quits movie-making when she realizes that she does not want him see her grow old.

My guess is that Chiyoko 'grows old' not only because time is pushing relentlessly forward, but also because she has stopped chasing the painter. In much of the Showa era, it is more about her waiting for him (if he is still alive) to find her. And as I said above, the surreal footage in the Showa era is more about running away from the truth to an artifact (ie. the painting in Hokkaido).   

6) The ending with Chiyoko flying off in a rocket seems extremely fitting because:

i) It resonates with the painter's words in his letter.

ii) It resonates with the last movie Chiyoko made in her career.

iii) She is flying off to somewhere beyond the reach of 'earth time'.

That's all I have to say for now. No doubt I will have more to say when I rewatch it again. Meanwhile, the floor is all yours if you have anything to add.

Comments

[neobanzia]

I am such a huge fan of Kon's work and even though I saw Millennium Princess a while ago (and Paprika more recently) the movie still resonates quite powerfully with me.

The insights and observations you've detailed here got me thinking and are seriously pushing me towards a rewatch.

- neob, intermittent reader of your blog.

[Rob Vollmar]

An excellent commentary on one of my absolute favorites, anime or otherwise.

Regarding your points about Kon's fascination with disrupting the viewer's sense of what is really happening...

There is this amazing moment right at the end of the introduction. As Chiyoko is about to blast into space (as part of a science-fiction narrative that we can safely assume is non-factual), her rocket begins to shake. Then the TV that the scene is playing on begins to shake, the "camera" pulling back to show Genma reacting to the earthquake that now shakes his studio.

Then, seconds later, Genma puts the tape he was watching into reverse, showing us the movie that we are about to see even as the credits begin, thus moving the actual plot forward for the first time.

Two quick repetitions of the same idea that perfectly set the tone for the rest of the film.

[Wabi Sabi]

neobanzia:

Thank you for letting me know that you enjoyed the post. Hopefully the intermittent reader will become a regular reader.

Rob Vollmar:

Yes, I also noticed that point but forgot to add it in. Thank you for mentioning it here. A quite subtle touch that is.