Millennium Actress

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Anime movie
title Millennium Actress
Original title 千年 女優
transcription Sennen Joyū
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 2001
Studio Madhouse
length 83 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Satoshi Kon
script Sadayuki Murai ,
Satoshi Kon
production Taro Maki
music Susumu Hirasawa
synchronization

Millennium Actress ( Jap. 千年女優 , Sennen JoyU ) is an animated film by director Satoshi Kon , who at the 2001 Fantasia Festival celebrated in Canada Premiere. The film is about a documentary filmmaker who wants to make a film about the formerly very well-known actress Chiyoko Fujiwara and relives various stages in her life in an interview with her, starting in the 1930s to the 1970s, when she was at the height of her acting career withdraws from the public. At the same time, the viewer gains an overview of Japanese history.

action

The documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana goes along with his cameraman Kyoji Ida to the secluded house of Chiyoko Fujiwara to there for his planned documentary about the life of the once highly successful actress to do an interview with her. He hands her a golden key, which in Chiyoko revives the memory of her search. The stations of her life are told in the form of flashbacks that are interwoven with the roles in her films, in which Tachibana and Fujiwara appear again and again as extras .

During the turmoil of World War II, the young Chiyoko meets a young painter who is wanted by the fascist Japanese regime as a dissident and falls in love with him. At their last meeting in a warehouse, the painter tells her that the golden key he wears around his neck is the "key to the most important things". Shortly afterwards the painter is discovered and escapes, but in the process he loses the key. When Chiyoko finds him, she decides to go looking for him. She becomes an actress and spends the next decades making films in various roles, always hoping to see her childhood sweetheart again.

Finally, during a shoot, an earthquake occurs that causes the set's backdrop to collapse. Chiyoko is saved by the young Tachibana, who is an assistant on the set, but loses the key. Tachibana later finds him, but Chiyoko believes he is lost, breaks off her acting career and withdraws because she has since given up hope of finding the painter.

At the end of her story, there is an earthquake in the present and Chiyoko is again protected by Tachibana, but she is passed out. On the way to the hospital, Tachibana tells his cameraman Ida about an encounter with the captain of the Japanese military in charge at the time, who admits that the painter was caught and tortured to death during interrogation. So Tachibana knew all along that Chiyoko's childhood sweetheart hadn't left the station alive, but over the years didn't dare to tell Chiyoko that her decades-long search was in vain.

At the hospital, Chiyoko thanks Tachibana for bringing her back the key and explains that over time, it was not so important to find the painter, but rather that she was driven by the search for him and is grateful for the wonderful experiences she has gained. She concludes that she will continue her search after death and closes her eyes.

Production and publication

The film was made in Studio Madhouse under the direction of Satoshi Kon . The character design was done by Satoshi Kon and Takeshi Honda and the artistic director was Nobutaka Ike. Susumu Hirasawa composed the soundtrack. Other studios involved in the production were Dr. Movie, Shaft and Kyung Kang ANIA.

The first performance took place at the Fantasia Festival in Canada on July 28, 2001. The film was released in Japanese cinemas on September 14, 2002, after which the film was shown at several festivals and was released on DVD in Poland, Great Britain and France, among others. In Spain it was televised by Buzz Channel . In France, the film was released on DVD on April 5, 2005 by DreamWorks Home Entertainment; In addition to a French, the original Japanese and Spanish soundtrack, a German synchronization was included. A second German version of Universum Anime was released on DVD on August 7, 2006.

synchronization

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
(1st Synchro, DHE) 		German speaker
(2nd synchro, WP)
Chiyoko Fujiwara (old) Miyoko Shōji Rita Engelmann Regine Albrecht
Chiyoko Fujiwara (as an adult) Mommy Koyama Tanja Geke Katrin Zimmermann
Chiyoko Fujiwara (young) Fumiko Orikasa Victoria Frenz Magdalena Turba
Genya Tachibana (old) Shōzō Iizuka Wolfgang Condrus Jürgen Kluckert
Genya Tachibana (young) Masamichi Satō Tobias Kluckert
Kyōji Ida Masaya Onosaka Timmo Niesner Stefan Krause
Eiko Shimao Shoko Tsuda Diana Borgwardt Christin Marquitan
Junichi Ōtaki Hirotaka Suzuoki Erich Rauker Robin Kahnmeyer
Key master Kōichi Yamadera Norman Matt Julien Haggége
Scarface Masane Tsukayama Helmut Gauss Detlef Bierstedt
Chiyoko's mother Hisako Kyōda Evelyn Marron Liane Rudolph

reception

According to the specialist magazine AnimaniA, in Millennium Actress Satoshi Kon uses elements similar to those in Perfect Blue , which lead the viewer “on a wrong track between reality and film and the protagonist's world of thought” . The scenes that are not in chronological order followed their own rules. As a nostalgic melodrama, the film has a hard time finding an audience, but the animation is extremely successful and the film succeeds in depicting Japanese film history more believably than a real film would be possible.

VideoWoche magazine describes Millennium Actress as an “original as well as poetic, in parts fantastically beautifully designed cartoon drama” that brings Japanese history to life. He is a "jewel for discerning anime fans" .

In 2003 the film received a prize from the Tokyo International Anime Festival . In Canada he received the award for the best animated film and the Fantasia Ground-Breaker Award for artistic innovation at the Fantasia Festival .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Amazon .de: Reviews of Millennium Actress
  2. ↑ OFDb - DVD: Dreamworks Home Entertainment (France), approval: unaudited by Millennium Actress (2001). In: OFDb.de . April 16, 2005, accessed March 9, 2019.
  3. ^ Millennium Actress. Animexx.de, accessed December 8, 2013 .
  4. ^ Millennium Actress (1st Synchro). In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 9, 2019 .
  5. ^ Millennium Actress (2nd Synchro). In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b AnimaniA No. 2/2002, p. 54 f.
  7. ^ Tokyo International Anime Festival Award Winners. Anime News Network , accessed August 6, 2009 .

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