Millennium Actress Southern Premier

MILLENNIUM ACTRESS [Sennen Joyu]

Satoshi Kon, Japan 2001 Japanese with English subtitles Running time:87 minutes

Kon's ambitious epic is a timeless saga spanning a century of Japanese history in war and peacetime, touching on the tumult of history, the transformation of nations, the pursuit of love against all odds, the quest for meaning in human life, age, wisdom, beauty and truth - and yet is completely unique, and entirely Japanese, and universally appealing. The beautiful Chiyoko Fujiwara was once Japan's most lauded actress, adored by millions and featured in all the great films of her age. For the last 30 years, she has lived as a hermit in a mansion, refusing contact with the outside world. When a documentarian comes to capture Chiyoko's life story on film, the actress opens her heart and her memories to the camera, launching into a picturesque autobiography dating back to when she was a young schoolgirl who fell in passionate love with a fugitive artist headed to Manchuria. Chiyoko's story stitches together scenes from her most famous films (which are mini-homages to the different idioms of Japanese cinema over the course of the 20th century) while taking the documentarian, his cameraman and the audience through a wild race of memory and history. Chiyoko's memories may be as deceptive as they are captivating, as history through her eyes may be more poetic than real. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Millennium Actress is Kon's way of playing with time. In his hands, time folds back on itself, restructures, changes shape, and floats in the current of the story ... The film lives in its own frame of meaning and minutes, and by doing so reveals the true nature of time and of history that it only exists experientially, through the eyes of those who, by seeing it, make it real. (Sonny Lee, University of Chicago)