Hey folks, Harry here with a report on an Anime that I really really can't wait to see. I loved the trailer for this sucker when I first saw it and frankly now... I can't wait! Really can't wait! Unfortunately I probably will. Just as I'll have to wait an eternity to see SPIRITED AWAY... sniffle... here ya go...
Having attended the Big Apple Anime Fest this weekend I thought it might not be a bad idea to give my two cents...
This past Friday was the greatly touted, highly awaited English premiere of Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis. Directed by Rintaro with a screenplay by Katsuhiro Otomo, this was serious business for serious fans. Most people made it a high priority to attend this very special screening, possibly one of the few features to earn an actual line outside the theater. Of course, then again, it was the first screening at the Director's Guild Theater for the con.
Pictures of the line here (click here) and here (Click here). I'm the big haired girl in the gray jacket towards the right.
They finally let everyone at around 4:30 or so, and me and two friends procured good seats toward the front and conversed with fellow otaku until the festivities began. Some after 5 the room was brought to attention and a whole menagerie of people brought out. First order of business was meeting BAAF chairman Kaz Hori, who quickly digressed, introducing a journalist named Edwin de la Cruz, who brought out all of the Guests of Honor. (Quick list: Katsuhiro Otomo, Rintaro, Kunihiko Ikuhara, Rusher Ikeda, Koichi Ohata, Tim Eldred, Yuji Moriyama, Mandy Bonhomme, Jessica Calvello, Crispin Freeman, Rachael Lillis, Matt Miller, Lisa Ortiz, and Eric Stuart. ) The whole affair was very formal, with the men in tuxedos and the women in dresses. They stood on stage as the president of Central Park Media, John O'Donnell, came up and spoke for a bit.
Finally the theater went dark and the movie began. Oh my.
A brief plot synopsis: in the future humans and robots coexist, but only so far as the artificial beings form a working class that service every human need, but are only allowed limited freedom if any at all. There also exists a strict division between the wealthy upper class that lives above ground, and the largely unemployed lower class that lurks in the lower, less attractive levels of the city.
Into this class struggle (based oh-so loosely on Fritz Lang's original masterpiece) are thrown a rather interesting series of characters. Our protagonists are the intrepid detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi. They have been sent to Metropolis to locate and arrest the scientist Dr. Laughton. However, Laughton is currently working for the powerful Duke Red, who wishes to control the world. To do this he has hired Laughton to build a totally unique android named Tima, patterned after the Duke's dead daughter. Looking on in disgust is the Duke's adopted son Rock, who throws a wrench into the works by killing Laughton and sending Tima on the run, the ever-faithful Kenichi her companion and protector.
All of this character establishment and plot development occurs early in the film, which is a big problem for the movie. For the first twenty minutes or so, the audience was simply a deer in headlights. The scenery, the animation is so simply beautiful, so large and breathtaking that there's simply no time to worry about the plot at this point. Most people were too busy looking at the action on the street as the camera panned over it, the subtle play of shadows and light over the numerous vehicles and characters wandering through the landscape. At one point early on we enter an office with a fish tank in the background, light refracting through the glass and water onto the characters in the foreground. The fish play no part in the plot, they're put there by the animators as a sign of "look what we can do!"
There were distinct moments when I felt I was watching something by Don Bluth, where the computer generated scenery was simply too much. Another person I spoke to agreed with the Bluth feeling, but about a different point: it was over-animated. There was simply more going on than we needed to see.
Eventually the audience either gets used to the effects of perhaps there is actually less, either way it comes time to play attention to the plot. Which is somewhat opportune, because at that point there's very little left. It's like eye candy, flash and little substance. I wasn't completely disappointed by the film. I loved the main characters, Shunsaku Ban and Kenichi and even Tima, they were cute and funny in their own ways, though the villain figures of Duke Red and Rock were somewhat muddled. Why did they do the things they did? It never entirely becomes clear, and what is clear is still incomprehensible. The simplest answer is to say that Duke Red is obsessed and Rock is crazy. Make your own judgment.
I was generally enjoying the film until the climax, which struck me as a huge mess. The action was easy to follow but did not cap the film off correctly. For everything we were told, everything the characters went through, the ending was not a proper end to the story. No insight gained, no closure really found. Pretty images and endearing characters cannot save this mess. It reeked of Otomo, with scenes of mass destruction, and people melding with machines. This repetitiveness seemed to be the one aspect people most complained about. The work was too derivative, too much like other things. Well, what did they expect from a film based on a manga created in 1949?
For the most part I enjoyed the movie, but found little brilliance in it. I suppose Otomo and Rintaro could have updated the story to fit more modern sensibilities, but then many otaku would cry bloody murder and sacrilege. You can't change the works of a master, especially one who's been dead over 10 years. They enhanced the artwork but managed to maintain the charm that permeates Tezuka's work. And that's what endears the film to me I suppose. But it's not worth the hype.
~ Lampbane
Breaker of Lamps, Destroyer of Vases
Defender of the Faith
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