Review of Shiki-Jitsu
BY GEORGE CHEN

It was a completely unplanned event. I was in Japan a few weeks ago and
ended up going to Tokyo Ebisu area's famous Photography Museum. To my
surprise, Mr. Anno's Shikijitsu (Day of a ceremony ) was showing at the
Museum's theater.

Shikijitsu is Mr. Anno's second feature film after "Love & Pop" which I have
also reviewed years ago on the ML.

How should I say this? Shikijitsu is moody, beautiful, and punctual. While
"Love & Pop" was pretty much done in a handy-cam documentry style,
Shikijitsu is done like a real wide screen feature film. One can clearly see
the growth of Mr. Anno's way of handling scenes, camera movement and most
importantly the actors and the dialog of the movie.

The story is about the meeting of a "Man" and a "Girl/Women". While the girl
is clearly a run away and having difficult family problem, "the man" is
simply being portrait as a "traveler". As most of the movies preview or the
official Web site trying to illustrate, the story is about the girl's urge
of suicide. "What day is tomorrow? Tomorrow is my birthday." And it's
clearly hinting the girl's urge to take her own life on her own birthday as
well.

While try not to give away the story too much, "the man" also plays a much
more important role than I have expected. And the ending while not too
surprising, it is also a welcome and satisfying ending.

What Anno has learned in his anime days still translate well in the film.
There are so may *tricks* Eva fan will certainly find familiar in
Shikijitsu. Also, Fujitani Ayako who plays "the girl" so done a masterful
job... 

Any criticism I have? I think the only criticism I have is not on the film
but on Mr. Anno actually. While Mr. Anno is the master on style, and visual
language, most of the *tricks* we saw in the film were one way or another
been done in Eva, Kare Kanor, and Love & Pop. I hope Mr. Anno's next project
is a little bit more *original*.

I am sure the film will eventually come to DVD and has some type of US
distribution... And if you are happen to be in Japan, be sure try to check
it out...

-g.