It was last year when I discovered Satoshi Kon. He’s now one of my favourite directors, and guess what, you should watch his films too, even if you’re prejudiced against anime (as I was).
Perfect Blue (1997): First one I saw and still my favourite. The film is about a member of a Japanese idol group who leaves the music industry in order to pursue an acting career. She soon finds herself stalked and threatened by an obsessive fan unhappy with her decision to leave the group (I don’t think you would want to join the Japanese showbiz after this); as things escalate and gruesome murders take place, she slowly loses her grip on reality (like Lady Macbeth). It’s a serious film and a great film, blurring the line between reality and fantasy and fiction—three layers. Black Swan clearly got ideas stolen from Perfect Blue, but Perfect Blue is much better.
Millennium Actress (2001): Two documentary filmmakers come to interview a famous actress decades after her retirement from the film industry and she tells them about the love of her life. On a personal level, I don’t like the film as much as the other three by Satoshi Kon (as I find her love story stupid); but on a technical level, it is an impressive film as Kon again blurs the line between reality and cinema. I also like that Millennium Actress references Kurosawa, Ozu, etc.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003): This one is quite unusual as it’s a comedy drama and (largely) realistic. Three homeless people—a middle-aged alcoholic, a trans woman, and a teenage runaway—find an abandoned baby in the trash on Christmas’s Eve and set out to find the parents. With such a storyline and such a set of characters, it could easily become sentimental and corny, but it isn’t—it’s funny and moving and the characters are full of life. Roger Ebert calls it “a story that will never, ever, be remade by Disney” (which should appeal to some of you). Might watch it again at Christmas.
Paprika (2006): His last film. A group of scientists create a device that allows people to view someone else’s dreams. The device however gets stolen and shit happens—people lose control of their minds and dreams merge and nightmares flood into the real world. Do I understand Paprika? Not the Jungian and Freudian ideas, no. But it’s a fascinating film nevertheless, and the rich and colourful and utterly bizarre dreamworld of Paprika makes me realise how drab and boring dream sequences in most films are. I can’t decide if this one or Perfect Blue is Satoshi Kon’s greatest film.
Online I’ve come across some people who think literature is a greater art form than cinema. I don’t agree. I think they’re different art forms with different ways of telling a story and different strengths. Cinema can do certain things that literature (or some other art forms) can’t—when a film is like a dream, or when it blurs the line between reality and fantasy and fiction—we see that in Ingmar Bergman, we see that in Federico Fellini, and we see that in Satoshi Kon.
Pity he died so soon.
Paranoia Agent
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