Metropolis (2001).

Review #2165: Metropolis (2001).

Cast: 

Yuka Imoto (Tima), Kei Kobayashi (Kenichi), Kôki Okada (Rock), Tarô Ishida (Duke Red), Kôsei Tomita (Hige-Oyaji), Norio Wakamoto (Pero), Junpei Takiguchi (Dr. Laughton), Takeshi Aono (Ponkotz), Masaru Ikeda (President Boon), Shun Yashiro (Notarlin), Toshio Furukawa (Skunk), and Shigeru Chiba (Lamp) Directed by Rintaro.

Review: 

"When I created the images for the futuristic city in Metropolis, in my mind I imagined Manhattan. So hopefully American audiences will feel a little bit closer to, or at least familiar with, the imagery, and through that they can grasp the underlying theme of the film, which is basically how humanity can be improved and how we can advance by living with different sorts of creatures. In this film, it's basically living together with robots and human beings. There will be a time that will come when those two different entities have to live together. If the audience can feel that, then I've done my job."

In 1949, the manga Metropolis (referred to as メトロポリス or Metoroporisu) was released, the second of an epic trilogy of sci-fi manga. Written by Osamu Tezuka, he apparently got the inspiration from seeing a still image from the 1927 film of the same name, as directed by Fritz Lang. Tezuka later became known as "the God of Manga" because of his innovative techniques in manga, with notable examples such as Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, before his death in 1989 at the age of 60. During his lifetime, he apparently did not wish for Metropolis to become an anime (as stated by Rintaro during an interview in 2001). At any rate, who better to be involved with an adaptation of a Tezuka work than Rintaro? Born Shigeyuki Hayashi in Tokyo, his interests were pretty clear as a kid: films (ones in his country or ones internationally shown such as The Stone Flower) and manga, with Tezuka being the clear one. He learned the basics of animation in an ad conpany that went bankrupt in short manner, but he heard about Toei looking for help on a film they were doing, and he wrote an enthusiastic letter to them. At any rate, his first job came as a teenager as in-between animator on Toei's debut feature in The White Snake Enchantress (released in 1958 that later became one of the first anime films to get an American release). He wanted to be a director from the start, because not only must one "understand the entirety of animation jobs", he felt the animators were the real stars of that medium. His first directing job came with the Astro Boy anime (as originally aired from 1963-1966). In 1979, he directed his first theatrical film with Galaxy Express 999. At 82, he just released an anikated short last year. The manga and film are distinct from each other, perhaps not surprisingly. Far be it from me to illustrate the differences of a manga that I've never read and this film when better sources can detail it accurately. The film is more of a synthesis of parts from the manga and the aforementioned Lang film, which Rintaro stated was one of his favorites. The manga's key robot that one that could fly, change their sex, and didn't have a belly button, and, well the Lang film had an ulterior motive in its "Maschinenmensch". The story of "The Tower of Babel" is mentioned in both Metropolis films. Most notably, the screenplay for the 2001 film was written by Katsuhiro Otomo, who you may remember had made Akira (1988), the anime film adaptation of his then-running manga. He had been involved in character design for Rintaro's Harmagedon: Genma Wars (1982), which had helped convince him that he really could do this by himself (i.e. not just having the interest/ambitions on maybe being involved in films), and it was Rintaro who had approached him about the project specifically because he wanted to try new things with that film.

The intent by Rintaro was to "communicate Tezuka's spirit" with a film that apparently took five years to make. Hand-drawn animation is used alongside those moments of computer animation. Those moments with CG were then subjected to what Rintaro called "detachment" in which the animators then hand-drew over. The result is a curious cohesion of various moods that make for a strange experience to wander into. It is one thing above all: a beautiful film to look and listen to. One does get that feeling of a sprawling spectacle of city with its own levels of living beyond just pretty buildings and wide-eyed folks. Beyond the imagery of humans and robots is the idea of pushing coexistence above all else, where it isn't just enough to have cutting-edge technology if you've still got people mired under the boot of people with nothing better to do than exploit them like puppets, where in turn you see robots getting beaten to pulp if they happen to be in the wrong designated places (the most striking one is undoubtedly the first one to view, right there in the first few minutes agyer showing what the city looks like). Technology can be convenient and helpful to us, but it could also make for a potentially destructive force in the wrong hands, which all sounds like a familiar fable, but the journey to get there is worthwhile moreso than the acting to get there. Oh sure, the voices are serviceable to the journey, but it is the general mood and vision that comes with an imagined idea of super-sprawl in old times that dominate more than anything. Destruction in terms of hubris and misplaced sense of savior status is right there for the taking here. Okada and Ishida do make dependable adversaries, each trying to grapple with what really seems to matter in enforcing vision that leads to probably the most interesting use of song to cap a scene in quite a while. Imoto and Kobayashi make a useful bond in that general sense of identity and the inevitable, but one does get a sense that 113 minutes is just about the point where it makes sense to see the film wrap up. The curiosity over its effects and some of its ideas as a robo-fable work better the less you try to guess where it goes. It's a pretty good film, maybe not being the one you go right to first for anime recommendations but one to go when trying to branch out in vision. It makes for a useful tribute to the work of Tezuka in that sense of amazement for a solid experience.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

We're back. For the third year in a row, January starts with a collection of reviews of directors not previously featured on Movie Night. Last January had eighteen additions to the list of over 900 directors featured. This is the first of the fourteen seasons to start with an animated film, because why not? Next up, Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw.