It all really adds to the grandiose and eternal nature of the story. There are also direct samples from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly opera that are expertly incorporated with Eva’s opera background.
Yoko Kanno contributes an operatic score that grows increasingly aggressive and intense as the story progresses and it’s the perfect companion to the movie’s moody visuals. On this note, the score in “Magnetic Rose” is another stunning accomplishment. The segment concludes on a visual highpoint when corpses float out into space as Eva’s opera singing poetically christens this ejection of her past.
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“Magnetic Rose” is also full of gorgeous images that reflect both the cold nature of space and the pain that consumes Eva. It’s this debate over artificiality that governs each of Memories’ stories, but it’s pushed its furthest here, even if it dresses itself up as a horror movie. It’s a machine that’s hurt over a human’s failures, which is so much more complex than if it were actually Eva who carried out these actions. Eva’s desire to be wanted and remembered becomes even deeper upon the realization that this is all still filtered through the space station’s AI. A true sense of dread builds as these two get deeper into the space station and Eva’s hold on them grows more invasive. It’s haunting how the AI-based Eva’s manipulation of Heinz and Miguel breaks the rules of reality and seamlessly blends memories, reality, and desires. Part of the fun in “Magnetic Rose” is that it functions like a slasher ghost story in outer space. It oddly feels like a synthesis of Kon’s Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue, and Paprika, even though “Magnetic Rose” pre-dates them all. “Magnetic Rose” is as big of a surreal mind bender as any of Kon’s works and it genuinely feels like one of his movies despite how he’s not the director. It’s 45 minutes of absolute perfection that’s directed by Koji Morimoto of Studio 4☌ from a script by the legendary Satoshi Kon ( Perfect Blue, Paranoia Agent, Paprika ).
#Memories anime movie#
“Magnetic Rose” is by far Memories most impressive showpiece and if for whatever reason a two-hour movie seems like an impossible premise, then at the least “Magnetic Rose” deserves to be seen. Memories should be mandatory viewing for anyone who’s not just a fan of animation, but the science fiction genre in general, especially now that it’s available in the best quality that it’s ever been and with an English dub for the first time. Anime can now be so action-driven and character development often gets traded in for lengthy battle sequences or explosions, which makes the patience in Memories and the existential questions that it raises stand out even more now than when the film was first released in 1995. They all work on their own, but as a whole, they reinforce each other and culminate into a truly impressive package that’s considered an underground classic. Each of these segments is a different musical number that reflects and recontextualizes the major themes of identity and perception that run through the entire movie. Memories presents three independent stories–”Magnetic Rose,” “Stink Bomb,” and “Cannon Fodder”–but they all work together like the complimentary movements of a symphony. Anthology films are largely a mixed bag with there usually being an outlier or two that don’t have the same level of quality as their accompanying content, but when these movies work they can be unlike anything else. There’s a magic to these kinds of projects, especially when they’re tied together with a strong theme or idea. Anime films have played around with the anthology format for a while and there’s a real elegance to movies like Robot Carnival, Neo Tokyo, Genius Party, or even The Animatrix. Altogether, Memories explores the pain and obliviousness that fuels life, but in three very unique ways.Īnthology storytelling has seen a serious resurgence over the past decade and there’s definitely an advantage to this style of content. Finally, “Cannon Fodder” tells a strangely sentimental coming of age story between a father and son who live in a world where gigantic cannons and constant warfare are the norm. “Stink Bomb” approaches the idea of biological warfare in an extremely unusual manner when an unsuspecting chemist begins to exude a stench that’s so severe that it literally kills off most of the population. “Magnetic Rose” looks at two engineers who investigate an abandoned space station and find themselves stuck in a much larger mystery surrounding the life of a missing opera singer who may or may not still be among them.
Memories is an anime anthology film that originally came out in 1995 that presents three stories that lean into science fiction to various degrees and in different ways.
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