This is a really fantastic film. One of the few that I like as much as the best Ghibli films, and I highly reccomend it.

The story revolves around an actress who has been living in seclusion for 30 years. She finally agrees to an interview, and the film revolves around her memories as she recounts them, from the day she was born right up until the end of her film career. All of it is carried forward by a desire she holds to find a dissident artist whose life she had saved as a young girl. But the story takes a very different route through telling this story. It isn't quite a romance story as the premise would indicate. It's a very satisfying character study, something of a meditation on life, dreams, desires.

But what really stuck out was that very tremendous feeling of being both happy and sad as the film comes to a close. It really did remind me of the sincerity and warmth of Ghibli films, even though the subject matter is so different from most of them (though not all - there are some pangs of familiarity with Omohide Poroporo ). You should be warned, though, that Kon uses a very non-linear approach to storytelling, with memories and reality blending together, so be attentive.

Go and see it if you haven't.

Having seen both this and Tokyo Godfathers, I think Satoshi Kon is the third great anime director, after Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

If Millenium Actress is as good as Tokyo Godfathers, I will be sure to watch it....

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I loved Tokyo Godfathers.

Millennium Actress is even better.

It is indeed a great film. Probably Satoshi Kon's best, although Paprika gives it a run for its money. The final scene is haunting in a unique way that no scene from Ghibli can approach. It's truly something special.

It's also a huge step up from Perfect Blue, which shows occasional flashes of Kon's talent but is bogged down with gratuitous nudity and violence. I have yet to see Tokyo Godfathers but will hopefully get around to it sometime soon.

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that's it!!!! I have been trying to remember the title name, "Paprika", for days now and kept coming up with a blank... (no snide coimments, now. lol) thank you, Orphic...

I'm sure you will like Tokyo Godfathers....

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Perhaps I was a victim of the non-linear storytelling or perhaps the film is designed to be deliberately complicated to unravel. I was thrown by the skipping from memories of the actress' roles to her real life experiences, the two would sometimes jump in a direct scene without any warning. This is typical Kon and he used the same blurring between reality and an alternative existence on the movie screen (or rather one reality and an equal and parallel reality) in both Perfect Blue and (via the dream world) in Paprika.

It isn't obvious when the actress meets the dissident artist that she isn't on a filmset and from that point on the blurring of her real life memories and her career memories is almost continuous.

In fact that they can be separated is almost irrelevant. Which existence is real? And does it matter? This is the same conundrum Kon threw at us in his other two films.

The film also covers in compressed form many genres of the Japanese film industry from the 1920s and 30s to the present day so the film is also a sort of micro-compressed documentary of the Japanese film industry.

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"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

Milennium actress is supposed to blur reel life and real life; it was to demonstrate how the actress's life was as action-filled and dramatic as the movies she stars in, or how much acting is part of her life, so much so that it IS her life.

If you want a brief summary of Kon's works, he seems to like forcing fantasy into reality, in a way. Or to put it in another way, he likes playing with our subconscience.

I wasn't aware that Perfect Blue had much nudity, but you have to forgive the gore. It's a whodunnit thriller after all. I have more to complain about Paprika's nudity than in Perfect Blue.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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I agree with that last comment; I thought both the nudity and the gore in Perfect Blue was fully justified given the subject matter and the story. Even what some might think of as fanservice fitted in since the woman was being stalked by an otaku and hence her lifestyle was almost being portrayed through his eyes.

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"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

The "fake rape" scene was completely gratuitous and went on about five minutes longer than it needed to.

I don't mind nudity normally, but I thought the way it was used in Perfect Blue was very disturbing. I didn't mind it at all in Paprika.

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I watched Paprika yesterday. I enjoyed it, but Millenium Actress is still at the top for me though, along with Ghibli films.

Paprika is let down by the ending, I feel. All this apocalyptic destruction that would seem to stem from 1945 reoccurs in so much anime and I'd have hoped Kon would avoid it. Up until the last 15 minutes, Paprika was stunning, then it all went wrong.

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"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

Oh, I wouldn't say "all wrong." I enjoyed it all the way through the end. The problem is that the movie is just so much FUN, when it turns apocalyptic at the end it's hard to take seriously. It doesn't feel like anything's really at stake.

Paprika doesn't have near the emotional impact of Millenium Actress, but I think it's the most purely entertaining of Kon's movies. Not that it's without it's touching moments too. Gee, talking about it makes me want to watch it again.


EDIT: Just thought I'd add, you can see the real life millenium actress, Setsuko Hara, in many great Japanese films. She is still alive today, after quitting her acting career and going into seclusion in 1963 after Ozu's death.

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I wasn't aware of anything wrong with the "apocalyptic" ending. Dream world spilling into the real world is, I admit, a bit of a leap of faith, but that's about it. Since it's a dream world, it would make perfect sense for a dream-like solution to end it. Like robo-scientist said, to defeat the man, you need a woman, and "a little paprika" (opposites to null each other, and Paprika because the character was created to solve problems, and because it's a spice).

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I am me.
I am who I am.
I am Roarkiller.
No one else is me.

Roarkiller.net
Isakaya High RPG Site

quote:

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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