Talking Head

A Japanese film set in a studio. An animated production has stopped halfway. The director has disappeared. The film has to be finished. The release date is set and the money is spent. The producer finds someone. His name is not given; he is called only the director. He is given a job: finish the film. There is a condition. He may not look at the material; what has been shot, what remains, none of it. He will only talk to the crew. From there the film becomes an investigation. The new director proceeds section by section. He talks to one person from each department. The writer, the art director, the head of animation, sound, editing, production. Each describes their own work. At length. And after each conversation that person is found dead. The narrative does not build this as a crime story. The deaths are strange, symbolic, and not explained. What the narrative is interested in is not murder but parts: its idea is that an animation is made from divided labour; nobody sees the whole and everyone knows only their own layer. That is the new director's job too. He has to build the whole and has only accounts. The form is entirely strange. The film is live action; a production about animation, shot with actors. The sets are deliberately false. Painted backdrops, single-colour backgrounds, theatre lighting and a visible stage. The actors turn to camera and deliver long monologues. The narrative talks constantly about cinema. What a frame is, what editing is, what an audience sees and does not see. At one point the film itself speaks. An explanation comes at the end and resolves nothing. Mamoru Oshii made this between his animation projects. He made live action a few times in his career and this is one. The production is small and the running time a little over seventy minutes. Shigeru Chiba, Tomoko Ishimura and Fumihiko Tachiki are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Oshii's experimental vein and films that talk about cinema. Who it is not for: anyone looking for narrative; the film builds no plot and is almost entirely talk.