One of Father Geek here's favorite films of the Fall is "Steamboy" which actually had its USA public premiere here in Austin, Texas at the gloriously ornate 1915 victorian-style Paramount Theatre a couple of weeks ago... simply outstanding. However, HIFF hosted the film recently and our AICN "Island" reporter Albert Lanier writes in to us with his take on the phantastic film...

ANIMATED EPIC PREMIERES AT HAWAII FILM FEST

by Albert Lanier

STEAMBOY, animator Katsuhiro Otomo's latest film, had its U.S. Premiere during the 2004 Hawaii International FIlm Festival in Honolulu. Screened on Sunday, October 24 at the Signature Dole Cannery Theater complex on Oahu to a packed house of over 300 filmgoers, STEAMBOY is an eye-popping action/adventre yarn layered with a didactic and overwrought message.

STEAMBOY opens in a stalactite-filled cave chamber where we see a man working a machine by turning a wheel which helps extract water from within the interiors of the environs around him.

The story then shifts to a warehouse in Alaska ("Russian America" according to the titles) in the early 1860's. A large machine-a steam-generating device really- consisting of a mass of pipes, boilers and gauges fills up a portion of the warehouse Two men-father and son-argue over turning on the machine to the full range of its power. The father-an elderly white haired man- decides its time to test this new machine to the range of ts power. The steam machine starts to produce steam but quickly the increased power taxes its limits. The son-who is middle aged-wants to turn the machine off but some pipes suddenly burst creating an explosion and a exhalation of steam.

Time passes. It is now 1866 and the scene moves to a factory in Manchester, England. An accident has occured and a young boy pops out of nowhere to help alleaviate the situation. This young Mr-Fix-it is Ray Steam and the two men mentioned earlier are Ray's father and grandfather who are scientists and inventors who have been away from England for a few years. Like his father and grandfather, Ray is an inventor. This fact often results in endless teasing from neighborhood kids who razz him with such choice insults as "Ray Steam, Inventor of junk." Ray is not the type to turn the other cheek and ends up beating up one of his verbal tormentors with a small bit of piping (we find out from Ray's mother that the kid he hit had to have stitches because of the injuries inflicted by Ray).

Being an inventor, Ray is always tinkering with different parts and machines. One day, while at home messing about with a large machine in the back of the family residence, two mysterious men dressed in black suits arrive. One of the strangers announces that he represents the O'Hara Foundation in the United States. They are interested in research done by Rau's grandfather specifically an invention he crafted.

Oddly enough, a crate arrives that contains a number of specifications and blueprints and an odd ball-like object-a cannonball with a nut and bolt on one end. The repesentatives from O'Hara Foundation see this device and try to take it away from Ray. Another development occurs-Ray's grandfather suddenly pops up in the family domicile. He tells Ray that his father has died and that he needs to ake sure that his invention cannot fall into improper hands.

With that, a chase begins the first of many adventures and revelations experienced by Ray in STEAMBOY.

Another shift in location occurs in the course of the film as Ray finds himself transported to London where the World Exposition is currently taking place and where the Expo's centerpiece is the stunning Crystal Palace, an enormous glasshouse-like structure.

I hesitate to write any more in the way of plot points about STEAMBOY. This is a film that really needs to be seen to be appreciated.

STEAMBOY took several years to make and millions of dollars to produce and it is easy to see why. Otomo has obviously done extensive research on 19th Century England. Overhead shots of London's city blocks show row after row of houses and Otomo superbly captures the lines and form of the Crystal Palace.

STEAMBOY is chock full of action at times-we see full-blown chases featuring offbeat looking vehicles ( such as a huge tractor that comes bearing down on Ray), Dirigibles and trains- and yet there is also a more serious message here about the onslaught of technology and the burgeoning spread of science as not merely a series of progressive innovations but a greater force for improvement that can wholly recreate the world starting in Britain and spreading to other industrial nations and then throughout the globe.

There are some twists and turns here in STEAMBOY, sights to see and wonders to behold as the old carnival barkers were want to say.

I have to hand it to Otomo here. He has crafted a wonderful animated blockbuster film, a fine fusion of action, adventure and drama.

If anything, STEAMBOY is far more ambitious than Otomo's magnum opus, the breakthough animated drama AKIRA. Whereas AKIRA told a story more attuned to emotions especially the anger of the title character when he unleashes his powers at the climax of the film, STEAMBOY aims more for head as well as the eyes.

The script written by Otomo and Sadayuki Murai is better at providing an entertaining plot than dealing with barely disguised subtext of the growth of science and technology. Some of the dialogue seems like prententious title card drivel straight from a silent film (then again this film is set in the mid-19th century) while the almost spiritual belief in science seems appropriate for the time scale STEAMBOY is set in, its a little too much to take.

Still, STEAMBOY is a first rate piece of animation, an entirely engrossing film that is the equal to any big-budget live action extravaganza.

What's nice about STEAMBOY is that Otomo doesn't churn out an unthinking collection of computer composed pictures and tableaus but fills his film with some literate refences (one of the characters is named Robert Stevenson and another character is named Scarlet who's family owns the O'Hara Foundation-a nice reference to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind").

With its proliferation of pipes, boilers, wheels and gauges, STEAMBOY is a film that is more akin to seeing a brand-new type of car being unveiled for the first time. We admire the interiors-the seats, the cd system and other electornic components-and the exteriors-the tires, shape of the body but it is an admiration of a different sort more impersonal than personal.

STEAMBOY is a film of beauty but a different kind of beauty compared to other animated films. Then again, who says there has to be one standard of beauty anyway?

End