Memories

A three-part anthology adapted from Katsuhiro Otomo's own short manga, each part directed by a different filmmaker. Magnetic Rose, Koji Morimoto's forty-minute segment, follows a salvage crew answering a distress signal into an abandoned ship built out of one woman's memories. Satoshi Kon wrote it, and the core of all his later cinema is already visible. Yoko Kanno's score turns on an aria from Madama Butterfly. Stink Bomb, directed by Tensai Okamura, has a pharmaceutical worker swallow the wrong pill and become a walking chemical weapon without knowing it. He runs toward Tokyo with no idea what is happening, leaving the dead behind him. Cannon Fodder, Otomo's own segment, covers a single day in a city whose entire existence is devoted to firing shells at the city next door. It is cut to look like one continuous shot; the camera never stops. Who it is for: viewers who want to see the technical summit of hand-drawn animation in the 1990s. Who it is not for: anyone expecting three equal parts. Magnetic Rose overshadows the other two, and most viewers remember the film only for it.