{"id":36434,"date":"2016-11-14T08:40:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T16:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36434"},"modified":"2016-11-14T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T00:41:07","slug":"challenge-week-42-millennium-actress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-42-millennium-actress\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 42: Millennium Actress"},"content":{"rendered":"

This completes Satoshi Kon’s filmography for me, and OMG did I save the best for last (unwittingly). I liked his other three films, but I loved this one – not only does it avoid some of the excesses that anime often falls into for me (including the end of Kon’s Paprika<\/em>), but it straddles the line between fantasy and reality in a way that is basically made for me. I don’t know if Travis knew that or not when he recommended this to me, but good on you, mate.<\/p>\n

When a famous studio is about to close, a TV journalist goes to interview the studio’s biggest star, now long-retired and rather reclusive. She grants him the interview, and starts telling him the retrospective of her life, starting with how she met an intriguing young revolutionary as a girl – he dropped a key, which she picked up and kept for him. She became an actress in hopes that he would see her movies and find her, and at this point, her retelling of the movies she was in blurs with her real-life search for this young man that would last throughout her career and life. Meanwhile, the TV journalist and cameraman ALSO become part of the story, appearing in the movies, and eventually taking part in them and helping her on her quest to find the mysterious man.<\/p>\n

\"tf-key\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This structure lets Kon imitate many different types of film, as each movie she tells about is a different style, set in a different period of Japanese history, but always focused on the woman trying to escape her stifling life and find this man, often needing to physically break free of captors to do so. This gives you the sense of her seeking her potential lover not only through her career, but also throughout all of history. It’s action-packed and never slows down, a crescendo of images and music that crashes to a breathless finale that brings somewhat heartbreaking but absolutely true resolution.<\/p>\n

I’m inspired to rewatch Kon’s other films as well now, but this one is such a peculiarly “me” film that I doubt it’ll be surpassed. I already can’t wait to watch it again. I suspect it will move up my chart further when I do.<\/p>\n

\"tf-magazines\"<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

2001, Japan<\/em>
\ndirected by Satoshi Kon, written by Satoshi Kon and Sadayuki Murai<\/em>
\nstarring Miyoko Sh\u00c3\u00b4ji, Mami Koyama, Fumiko Orikasa, Sh\u00c3\u00b4z\u00c3\u00b4 \u00c3\u017dzuka, Shouko Tsuda<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Millennium Actress<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

Millennium Actress<\/b> > Happy Feet
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > Side Effects
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > The Three Musketeers (1973)
\nMillennium Actress < Fish Tank<\/b>
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > The Woman in the Window
\nMillennium Actress < Moonrise Kingdom<\/b>
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > JFK
\nMillennium Actress < Elevator to the Gallows<\/b>
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > The Lives of Others
\nMillennium Actress < Anatomy of a Murder<\/b>
\nMillennium Actress<\/b> > About Time<\/p>\n

Final #309 out of 3709 films on my chart (92%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #1 Satoshi Kon film (this 100%’s his filmography for me), my #1 Anime film, and my #9 film of 2001.<\/p>\n

Millennium Actress<\/em> was recommended by Travis Easton, a friend from the Flickcharters group on Facebook.<\/p>\n

A few more screenshots…<\/h3>\n

\"tf-actress\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-loom\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-seppuku\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-woodcut\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-hun\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-cameraman-shoc\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-samurai\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-cameraman-arrows\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-battle\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-carriage\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-flags\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-train\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-stylish\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-battlefield\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-astronaut\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-moon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This completes Satoshi Kon’s filmography for me, and OMG did I save the best for last (unwittingly). I liked his other three films, but I loved this one – not only does it avoid some of the excesses that anime often falls into for me (including the end of Kon’s Paprika), but it straddles the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3245,3243,3244],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-millennium-actress.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36435,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-42-the-phantom-carriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":0},"title":"Challenge Week 42: The Phantom Carriage","author":"Jandy","date":"November 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I went into this expecting an Expressionistic horror film, along the lines of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or maybe Haxan, to get that Scandinavian flavor, and there's certainly a ghostly creep factor to much of the beginning, but the film as a whole is more of a morality tale\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-phantom-carriage.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35505,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/2016-challenge-debrief\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":1},"title":"2016 Challenge Debrief","author":"Jandy","date":"March 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's been almost three months since my year-long movie challenge officially completed, and it's taken me that long to decompress, rerank everything, and generally get ready to post a recap of the year. The short version: it was awesome! I watched a ton of movies I really liked, very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/crop-400-Blows-watching.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36187,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/challenge-week-30-nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 30: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind","author":"Jandy","date":"August 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There are far too many Miyazakis on my unseen list, so I'm glad David gave me the push to get to this one. Sometimes overtly environmentalist stuff bugs me, not because I'm anti-environment - just because it often comes across preachy. I knew this was likely to be heavily pro-environment,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/tf-feat-nausicaa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36006,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/challenge-week-23-the-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 23: The Hole","author":"Jandy","date":"June 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I figured I'd be coming up against some of the odder films of the challenge when I got to Chad's week - he's got some of the more eccentric tastes in my main movie group on Facebook, and he didn't disappoint. Tsai Ming-liang's 1998 take on the turn of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/tf-feat-hole.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27275,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/50dmc-30-last-theatrical-movie\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":4},"title":"50DMC #30: Last Theatrical Movie","author":"Jandy","date":"September 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions. Today's prompt: What's the last movie you saw in theatres? Well, the last general theatrical release I saw was Attack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Changing-Husbands.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1983,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/66th-annual-golden-globes-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":36434,"position":5},"title":"66th Annual Golden Globes – Thoughts","author":"Jandy","date":"January 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And spoilers, so if for whatever reason you haven't watched it yet and don't want to know winners - you're probably screwed, since it'll likely pop up in your feedreader, on your TV, in your newspaper, etc. But at least I warned you, so there. Golden Globe spoilers after the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36434"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}