If we talk about Satoshi Kondirector (and mangaka), who died early, we can take a trip to a world of such great creativity where behind it, such renowned, award-winning and recognized titles are hidden, for their quality on all sides. Perfect Blue, Paprika, Tokyo Godfahers or Paranoid Agent are some of them and today we are going to make a stop at Millennium Actresstaking advantage of Select Vision put on sale at the end of January the long-awaited Blu-ray and 4K edition of this classic that arrived in Spain many years ago thanks to the company.

The film has had several editions on DVD at the time: Collector’s Box, Metallic, Simple… and after so much time, last year, Select Vision premiered it in theaters in its 4K version. After waiting a few months, the tape is now back in stores in three editions: Collector 4K + Blu-ray, Blu-ray single and DVD. We are going to focus the review on the first of the three named.

The first feature film Satoshi Kon, Perfect Blue (also edited by Select Vision), was called groundbreaking and blunt about media representation and overwhelmingly toxic fandom. His second job Millennium Actressserves as the antithesis of Perfect Blue, where the relationship between the artist and the fan is presented in a more positive light. People say that Kon he called both films “both sides of the same coin”.

Synopsis

In the past, Chiyoko Fujiwara was the dominant movie star on the Japanese film scene until her sudden disappearance from the public eye thirty years ago. One of her biggest fans, documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana, travels to the secluded mountain lodge where he makes her home to interview her. Once there, she gives her former youth idol an old key that she found in the remains of her old study and, as if the key had opened the door of her memory, Chiyoko begins to remember the story of her life. . In this way, she travels from the remote past to the distant future through a thousand years, crossing the border that separates reality from the movies that have been a large part of her life.

The premise of the film is seasoned with the overwhelming visual experience. At the beginning of the story it sounds simple, but nothing is further from reality. We begin with a small-time video producer, Genya Tachiban, takes his half-hearted cameraman to interview a former movie star named Chiyoko Fujiwara, who now lives a reclusive life with minimal social contact. Fujiwara immerses herself in old memories of her, reminiscing about the wartime, post-war existence, and her lost love for her, whose pursuit made her the great artist that she was.

Once the story takes off, brimming with transitions and intercuts, we’re totally caught up in the action. Genya, a middle-aged, long-time fan of Chiyoko, and her cameraman initially stand as passive witnesses in the actress’s memories. When the actress recounts her first casting or when she accidentally meets a young artist on the run, the space of the old actress’s living room jumps into the reconstructed space of her memories.

The director’s characteristic maneuvers begin when the actress’s memory of the search mixes with images from the films she played.

Interweave reality and fiction as only Kon knows how to do

Satoshi Kon he is an expert between mixing the reality of the character and fiction. Not only in this film, if we review his productions, in Perfect Blue or Paprika that magic that he has when narrating his stories is as plausible as in Millennium Actress.

Returning to the tape, Chiyoko’s memories brilliantly show the relationship between memory and desire. The feeling we get from the tumultuous and fond memories of Chiyoko’s professional and personal life is that this is her way of keeping her desire alive, even though the pursuit has become futile.

The creator, with that realism and that soundtrack, transmits to us from that very moment a production with very important feelings towards the cinema, a medium that represents under the life of this actress who has touched many sticks in her life and who has marked all the moments in which he has worked, majestically combining all the details to catch the viewer.

The edition

The collectors edition of Select Vision It brings us in an illustrated hard cardboard box, the edition of the film in a careful 4K, as well as its edition for the first time on Blu-ray, all of them accompanied by a third Blu-ray loaded with digital extras:

Interview with Masao Maruyama (32′) Interview with Taro Maki (8′) Making Of (33′) Trailer Trailer VOSE

And to put the finishing touch to it, it is included on CD with the wonderful soundtrack that this great production has.

Also as a physical extra we have the 44-page book loaded with interesting information about the production.

In conclusion

Millennium Actress It is one of those films that should be present in any self-respecting collection, not only for lovers of anime or animation, but for lovers of cinema in general, since it is a tribute, a nod to everything that this entails and now for finally we have it available in HD versions that the tape deserved in a careful edition by the distributor, which also delights us with that soundtrack that is magic to our ears.