In Memory: Satoshi Kon
1963-2010
By Kevin T. Rodriguez
Satoshi Kon was one of my absolute favorite directors and it crushes me to have to write this, but facts of life being what they are means that I have little choice in the matter: On August 24th, 2010, Satoshi Kon died of pancreatic cancer. This is the official date of which he died though I did not hear about this until today because information of his passing was slow to get out. Kon was not a huge name in America being that he directed anime films. I’m not even sure how big he was in Japan because his movies were unconventional movies by anyone’s standards. I know Tim Burton, Martin Scoresese, and Henry Selick all made weird films, but they were nothing in comparison to what Kon was always making.
Not only were his movies weird they defied animation logic. That may sound weird to people because how can one defy animation logic when the logic is that anything in animation can happen so long as the artist thinks of it? His debut film “Perfect Blue” (which happens to be one of my favorite films of all time) speaks volumes of this sentence perfectly. This is arguably his most famous film. It is the one that was most widely seen in America, it gathered it’s own share of controversy, and it had people talking the most. The film was about a women who seems to be losing her grip on reality the more famous she gets in her professional career. There are usually two things that grab people about this movie: The fact that it’s dark and the fact that it’s animated.
People noted that the movie was dark and creepy, and had a Hitchcock feel to it’s pacing and eventual ending. What confused almost everyone was the fact that it was animated. As many were quick to point out the movie could have very easily been made into a live-action film and wondered why they bothered animating it. Even the character animation looked more realistic then anything. Well the official response was that animation (at least in Japan) was cheaper to do then live action. Unofficially I believe Kon saw something in the animation that would make the film less distracting. Not having to worry about actors not squinting their faces just right or stunts that would be analyzed to death if shot in live action all seemed like logical reasons to animate it.
Some of his later films would prove to be more expansive and epic in nature, and the budget reasoning would have made more sense with one of these. In particular “Millennium Actress” and “Paprika” were so filled with over-the-top sequences of visual wonder that to make them in live action would have actually killed their impact on the spot. Even though Kon knew how to stage a wonderful visual sequence he knew how to tell a story and develop characters. Arguably his most loved work was that of “Tokyo Godfathers,” a movie about three homeless people trying to get an abandoned baby home. Visually this was his least interesting film but it was well loved by most people who saw it and connected to it’s human emotions.
Kon may have had a love for the theater but he was a storyteller first and foremost. At one point he wrote a story he was particularly proud of. The problem was every time he staged it for a film it wouldn’t work. He realized the project was too ambitious for a film, so “Paranoia Agent” became a TV series instead. This was considered by many people a step back as the goal in the animation business in Japan is to work your way up to feature films and never look back. But look back Kon did. In the process he created a critically acclaimed show that was widely praised for feeling cinematic in nature. As of this writing he was working on a fifth film about robots. Right now it is unclear if the film will see the light of day.
Kon had a tendency to keep all his notes in his head to insure that the film would have his personal touch all over it. I feel heartbroken that we might not see anymore films from this brilliant director. Yet I look at the few works he did and I’m amazed at how good those projects are. They have for years been misunderstood but they show such character and originality that in several years they will be noted for being ahead of their time and revolutionary. You can’t teach things like this to creators of great art and so his passing is a great loss to the film industry. But the films he’s made will live on and be loved by many for years to come. If not everyone then at least by me. This was a sudden loss and I will miss him terribly.
"With feelings of gratitude for all that is good in this world, I put down my pen. Well, I'll be leaving now."
—Satoshi Kon
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