Millennium Actress (2001)

Millennium Actress is a dreamlike animated drama that follows a TV interviewer and his grumpy cameraman as they visit Chiyoko Fujiwara, a legendary actress who has spent three decades in seclusion. When a key from her past is returned, Chiyoko begins to recount her life and career — and as she speaks, her memories spill over into cinematic set pieces. The film seamlessly folds together reality, fantasy and the movies she made, taking the viewer on a kaleidoscopic journey across genres and eras as Chiyoko pursues the one person she has never stopped searching for. Watching Millennium Actress is an immersive, emotional experience: you'll be swept from tender, nostalgic scenes of youth to action, romance and melodrama, all stitched together with inventive, fluid animation that blurs the line between memory and fiction. The storytelling is poetic and bittersweet, exploring themes of obsession, the passage of time, the power of storytelling and how cinema can preserve — and transform — a life. Visually inventive and emotionally resonant, this Satoshi Kon film is both a love letter to movies and an intimate portrait of one woman’s longing. Expect to come away moved, reflective and impressed by its bold structure and the way it uses animation to make memory itself feel cinematic.

Actors: Miyoko Shôji, Shôzô Îzuka, Mami Koyama

Director: Satoshi Kon

Runtime: 87 min

Genres: Animation, Drama, Fantasy

7.4 /10 70 /100 7.8 /10 7.4 /10