Sound And Vision: Kon Satoshi
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Hirasawa Susumu's Forces, from the Berserk soundtrack, directed by Kon Satoshi.
This week it has been fifteen years since master anime director Kon Satoshi passed away. Five years ago ScreenAnarchy looked back at the legacy of the director of classics like the horror-thriller Perfect Blue, the dream-infused surrealist fantasy Paprika, the heart-warming genreblending Christmas drama Tokyo Godfathers and the epic film-ode that is Millennium Actress. Also included were miscellaneous works, like his grand opus tv-series Paranoia Agent, the short films Magnetic Rose (from anthology film Memories) and Good Morning. An omission was the sole music video Satoshi Kon made, but I can get why. The music video Kon Satoshi made for Hirasawa Susumu's track for the anime tv-series Berserk called Forces is not very official and features no original footage by Kon. Instead it is credited as an AMV.
What is an AMV? To ridiculously simplify it, it is basically a fan-edit of clips of an anime series, set to a pre-existing track, into a short music video. The results can vary from anything like cutting the most nerdy anime series to electromash bangers, or to even western schmaltzy poptracks from the likes of Coldplay. It is basically fan culture meeting the unbridled creativity the early internet brought with it. So that the only music video Kon Satoshi made is an AMV for the anime series Berserk is somewhat surprising. But Kon Satoshi is a nerd at heart. He wears his references on his sleeve. Perfect Blue is for example set in the world of Japanese fan culture of idols (simplified: female Japanese popstars), while Tokyo Godfathers is his mash-up of It's A Wonderful Life and John Wayne's Three Godfathers. Paprika and Paranoia Agent skip through so many points of reference and genres it is hard to keep track, and Millennium Actress is his ode to a century of Japanese cinema in its entirety. So him fanboying out might not be thát surprising.
Also easily made is the connection between the pre-existing track and Kon himself. The track is from the soundtrack of Berserk itself, made by Hirasawa Susumu. Hirasawa was the main composer for many Kon-films, and both Berserk, Paprika and Paranoia Agent are clearly from the same sonic cloth. Still, Berserk was described by a friend of mine who has seen it (ScreenAnarchy contributor Ard Vijn) as a 'Bosschian hellscape' about a character driven by an all-consuming fury and rage. He also described it as a pit of despair, violence and abuse unlike anything else, like "if you fell from grace together with Lucifer himself". It is a far cry from how I see Kon's work, who in general has a warmer outlook on life, even though his characters are also driven by all-consuming passion and inner motives. But the AMV is also clearly Kon in it's frantic editing. It's hard to compare it to the series itself because I haven't seen it, but Kon's fingerprints are all over the frenzy and flurry of the images, showcasing an expert pacing and a great eye for choosing the right shots. It's everything an AMV can be and should be. Still, while I would've liked Kon to have tackled a fully original piece of animation, I consider this AMV to be as essential to the oeuvre of Kon as some of his other minor entries, because it showcases the director as a fanboy.
