Another review being culled from the forum so we can share it more openly, Eight Rooks takes a look at a slightly earlier STUDIO 4℃ movie called 'Princess Arete' - can we have one of their film 'Capricious Robot' please?!...
Again, although there's a marked increase in interest in 'Mindgame' (out on subtitled R2 Japan DVD for a couple of years, and word still trickles through online about it) there's a slew of other STUDIO 4℃ stuff that could be licensed - TV series, short films, pop videos, whatever else there is... - and although it may take some licensing magic, it's a veritable goldmine that hasn't been picked up on.
Now, imagine being a STUDIO 4℃ fan and having to wait for the DVDs to come through in the way they did in America for Studio Ghibli or anything else of obvious quality, and now you have an idea of the frustration many animation fans feel about this work.
There's a fansub of this out there of course... it's four years since the Japanese DVD appeared, unsubbed.
In the capital of a nameless medieval kingdom, a young princess - Arete - sits in her tower room, closeted from the outside world, bored and alone. Her only solace comes from what books she gets to read and the few times she dares to escape the castle to wander the city in disguise, watching the common people going about their daily lives and wondering at how much richer it all seems than hers. Tired of being taken for a flower vase by both her father and her suitors, she tries to escape, only to fall into the hands of Boax the sorceror who promises the court in exchange for the princess as his wife, he'll use his magic to make sure she's compliant and docile and never thinks of doing anything unbecoming again. Soon, the princess comes to realise there won't be any rescue, and she'll have to work out what it is about her that'll let her break the sorceror's hold and escape his castle.
Studio 4C have managed critical and commercial success with their work on The Animatrix, the animated feature Spriggan, the cult Noiseman: Sound Insect and a host of other shorts to name a few, but their more unknown productions are every bit as laudable, arguably far more so. Masaki Yuasa's Mindgame still remains surprisingly unknown and unlicensed in the West (though hopefully his television series Kemonozume will go some way towards rectifying that) and perhaps even more underappreciated - certainly less well known - is the 2001 film Princess Arete.
Arete is almost Mindgame's polar opposite, an oddity among 4C's body of loud, bold, strikingly expressive animation. It's slow, placid and in no hurry to tell what is, at least on paper, a very simple story. Its budget is markedly less - the art is rarely outright cheap, but it's obvious the simple, muted colour palette, minimal use of CG, hand-drawn designs and dropped frames are all means of cutting corners. And it's adapted from a little-known feminist children's fable - The Clever Princess, by Diana Coles, though it drops much of the feminist angle in favour of a more general message of self-empowerment. Not yet licensed in the West, much of the small critical response - largely from its festival appearances in 2003 - criticises its glacial pace, likens it to cut-price Ghibli and argues the narrative amounts to fairly little.
This is a shame.
One wonders precisely how Arete got made, why 4C felt they had to do it and what audience they thought they were pitching it to. It feels not unlike it's been made in the wrong medium, sometimes - it begs the question whether anyone who took it to task for being slow ever sat down in front of a Tarkovsy, or a Hou Hsao-Hsien. The synopsis at the start of this review misses out so much - so many aspects of the film hinge on nuances, on little details - like the sorceror actually being a survivor of a lost civilisation, slowly realising through Arete's presence and the things that happen while she's there that he's wasting his life waiting for a rescue that's never coming, just as Arete realises her salvation was in her hands all along. Or the climax, the way it's played out almost totally without melodrama, or even music, and the way it relates to Arete's admiration for the common people and the way they prove, to her, that life is worth living on its own terms no matter what your circumstances. Or even the sequence where the princess rebuts her suitors - as a set piece it is very funny, though the real joy is in watching the facial expressions, each carefully chosen shot, and revelling in the byplay and how it's both spoken and unspoken.
Though cheap, to a degree, the film is actually beautifully directed - startlingly so when one considers Sunao Katabuchi's directing experience mostly came from the Street Fighter TV series and Great Dog Lassie. There are many, many memorable shots - in particular some captivating landscapes around Boax's castle and the secret passageway by which the princess travels between her room and the outside world. It bears mentioning also there's a notable lack of the typical rushed isometric and side-on views that spoil so many otherwise promising series or features. The colour palette is quiet and even drab, but it fits the milieu the story takes place in, and it feels solid, real, immersive - the naturalistic touches to the emptiness and quiet bring to mind the videogames ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus. And what little music there is is superbly chosen, the audio cues minimal and timely, and the insert song a typical haunting piece from Origa (of Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex fame and various other collaborations with noted composer Yoko Kanno).
Above all else, though, like the best ideas the story conveys tremendously thought-provoking subtexts with the bare minimum of ornamentation. It goes beyond the typical "it's all up to you!" ethos of many an action anime, and - much like the first two animated McDull features from Hong Kong - the story challenges us to consider we can still get plenty out of life even if events make it perfectly clear there's nothing that distinguishes us from the next person in line; that being alive is reason enough to be happy. The small voice cast all do tremendous work, particularly Houko Kuwashima as Arete - especially noteworthy with most of her other work being in fairly undemanding video game roles.
Currently only available officially - to my knowledge - on a Japanese DVD without English subtitles, it has nonetheless been fansubtitled for some time now. Arete is far from cut-price Ghibli, and proof Studio 4C are capable of more than relentless assaults on the senses. It has a grace and self-composure very, very few other films manage, certainly animated - the only comparable effort that comes instantly to mind would be the brilliant My Beautiful Girl, Mari by Lee Sung-Gang. Arguably more mature, more carefully considered than anything Miyazaki has done, the kind of thing most major Western studios would cringe even contemplating, for all its obvious limitations it remains one of the finest animated films I've ever seen, and for those willing to give it due time and suspend their preconceptions of what the medium ought to supply the viewer it comes hugely recommended.