This is the creative idea of Jin Min and his planning team when they first started filming the animation "Millennium Actress". This is only his second work, but his personal style has already been demonstrated.
The content of Millennium Actress can be understood as a long-form character interview show. When we talk about character interviews, the first thing we think of is nothing more than that the reporter sits in front of the interviewee, the front, side, medium-range close-ups are all kinds of cuts, and the interviewee talks endlessly. A two-hour story, interspersed with a few vintage photo easing shots, how boring! But what if the interviewer could join the audience in the interviewee's story? You can even play a role in it, not only can you see the whole process of the incident from the first perspective, but also participate in the life of the interviewee, which will definitely allow the audience to have a more intuitive and profound experience, and the dull talk show will become vivid. Have fun. In "Millennium Actress", Jin Min combined these two storytelling methods, so that the audience is like standing in front of a trompe l'oeil painting, realizing the free switching of reality, the past, and the three time and space in the movie.
And the most exciting and complex part is here, how to switch smoothly in multi-dimensional time and space without confusing the audience? Matching transitions are one of Jin Min's best techniques: at the beginning of the film, a very advanced gameplay is used, and the double-space-time cross-cutting also reflects Chiyoko's journey to find the owner of the key and the producer Mr. Tachibana and the camera. The process of the teacher's long journey to find Chiyoko's footsteps; the vibrations emitted by the spaceship on the screen were implicated in a small earthquake in real time and space. Chiyoko was covered by the smoke of war, and when the smoke cleared, she moved from the Warring States period to the carriage of the Meiji period; Chiyoko, who was lying in the ward wearing an oxygen mask, turned into a lying about to launch through a simple graphic matching transition. astronauts in space capsules; stumbled from one era and stumbled into the space of another... There are countless wonderful examples like this, using tons of clever matching transitions, for shooting without thinking This is undoubtedly one of the most charismatic and imaginative techniques for animators of execution difficulty. Just imagine a movie animation, with only TV talk show-style narration and pros and cons, who would watch it?
The three time and space involved in this interview spanned a thousand years, from the Warring States Period in Japan to the future cosmic era. Who can live for a thousand years? Why is the heroine called a thousand-year-old actress? This refers specifically to the role of the heroine Chiyoko in the movie dimension spanning thousands of years, so her identity is not only an actress, but also a witness and creator of Japanese film history. Chiyoko's youth coincided with the period of Japan's overseas expansion, which was in line with the protagonist's vigorous state of dreams. Chiyoko met a young painter at this time. His mystery and the beautiful scenery made her feel like falling into Alice when she was young. The cave opens up a whole new world. She began her long quest with the key that "opens the most important things". Through the magical channel of movies, she travels in different eras and places. She is searching hard on the screen, and she does not give up any clues off the screen. The audience likes this kind of desperate pursuit for the original dream in their hearts. This is completely the portrayal of the Japanese national image at that time, so the setting that Chiyoko can become a much-anticipated star is also logical. Her setbacks are also accompanied by the shadow of Japan's defeat, and her peaceful life after marriage also conforms to the peace of Japan's post-war recovery period. Every growth imprint of the protagonist is engraved with the brand of the times, allowing the audience to see and understand the environmental factors behind this character more deeply, and also make the whole work thicker.
In my opinion, it is better to understand this animation as a biography of a legendary character than as a tribute to Jin Min's beloved film career itself. The director expressed too much love for Japanese movies through the character of Chiyoko. It was only because of a chance encounter when he was young that he began to be heartbroken, and it evolved into a goal that he spent his entire life chasing. Even if this goal was only an ethereal phantom in the end, the process of chasing made him "hate to the bone, love to the bone". pith", what can we do for the first love? Throwing into the sea of fire, climbing to the moon, and traveling through the millennium are also at the expense of. From this point of view, isn't the wandering painter to Jin Min the movie itself?
Now, the servant is gone, Chiyoko and Jin Min are all deeply engraved in the long river of movies that has the magic power of spanning thousands of years. The movie fulfilled Chiyoko and Jin Min.
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