Millenium Actress (2001)

I'd heard of this movie and seen it around on and off for several years, but the clips I'd seen and the description turned me off, so I didn't watch it despite having heard good things about it. After seeing it however, I don't know why I waited so long! The movie is about two guys who want to interview a famous actress for the documentary they're doing on her life. Clips of the movies she has been in are featured throughout the film to tell the story of her love for a man she doesn't really know. This sounded extremely boring to me. The pacing of the movie isn't fast and exciting either, but more of a slower building up to the climax, so if one were to fast forward through to see segments of various scenes... well it just looked boring. But, the movie is actually really good.

First of all, the art is amazing. A lot of attention paid to detail and it's a pleasure to watch purely from an artistic perspective.

So the story is about two guys who interview a famous actress about her life, and she tells this story through movies she's been in. Basically when she was young she met a wounded rebel in the streets and hides him from the police for a night. When she goes to see him in the morning he's gone, but he left a picture of her that he drew saying something like 'until next time'. So she sort of falls for this man and then obsesses over him for the rest of her life. She gets an offer to be an actress and accepts because the job she was offered took her to where the guys escaped to. So we find out that her success as an actress stems from her desire to find this guy. And this sounds superficial and weak as a motivation to do something with your life, kind of playing off the stereotype that a woman needs a man to complete herself, which is why I like this movie so much. When a typical North Amercian thinks of Japanese culture, or for some people Asian culture in general, they think of the stereotypes of weak- willed, submissive women because of how the media portrays them and such, but this movie subtly twists that stereotype on its head. The girl spends her entire life chasing after this guy and during many parts in the movie I wondered why she doesn't just give up on the guy and live her life for herself. At the end of the movie though ... I guess spoiler alert, but if I'd known this sooner I'd have watched it sooner... she tells the interviewer that it didn't matter to her if she ever actually caught up with the guy. In fact if she did catch him she would probably get bored of him because it was the chasing that she lived for. And this is like anything in life. If you chase a man or a job or even an ideology of some kind, the journey is the important thing, meaning that she is in fact living for herself, even though from a supercifical or incomplete understanding of her situation, it seems to be otherwise. That made the movie for me. So I liked it.

The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)

This is my absolute favorite movie and has been ever since I was a little girl. My mother actually introduced me to this movie and since then I have become addicted to all things mythological (I probably would have gotten into it anyways, but this sped up the process). 

It's a story about a girl who goes to live with her grandparents for a while because her father is too busy with work to care for her. While with her grandparents, she visits an island her family used to live on. This is also the island where her younger brother was taken away by the sea. She snoops around the island and catches glimpses of a small boy she suspects to be her brother. As it turns out, selkies have taken him away. So the girl, with the help of her cousin, begin to make the abandoned houses on the island habitable again so that they can move back, thereby getting the girl's brother back from the sea. 

This film is subtle, yet superbly effective in giving you that evanescent, magical feeling. So many movies try to capture that evasive 'something else' but end up being fake and cheesy but this one makes the cut. It's suitable for all ages and is a definite must experience. The soundtrack isnt bad either.