Films about films and the movie industry in general have been increasing in numbers during the last few years, as we have seen in the list we compiled back in 2020. Anime, however, has not picked up on the trend, with the exception of Masaaki Yuasa's excellent “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”. Takayuki Hirao comes to fill this gap with “Pompo the Cinephile” a truly great title that functions both as a realistic view to what happens behind the cameras and a love letter to cinema as a whole.
Pompo the Cinephile will be shown at selected cinemas in Japanese with English subtitles from Wednesday 29th June 2022, and with an English-language dub from Thursday 30th June 2022. The film is rated 12A.
For more information and to book tickets, please visit www.pompofilm.co.uk
The story is based on a web manga by Sugitani Shougo and follows Gene Fini, an assistant at the acclaimed Peterson Films, and a young man whose passion for cinema is only rivaled by the head producer of the company Joelle Davidovich “Pompo” Pomponette, who is the one who has hired him as assistant. Pompo is a legend of Nyallywood, since her action flicks never fail to produce significant revenue, focusing on monsters and girls with guns, with Mystia, a star on her own, being the usual protagonist. It is in one of those films that Gene gets his first chance, as Pompo asks him to direct the trailer. The result is excellent, and the blonde kid-like mastermind's actual plan surfaces. For the first time, she has written a script of quality, one that aims at getting awards instead of just making money, and Gene is to be the director. Furthermore, Pompo has secured the services of the “best actor in the world”, Martin Braddock, while the female protagonist role is reserved for Natalie, an ordinary girl with movie actress dreams who has just arrived in town, just to be discovered by Pompo. Thus the adventure of making a movie begins.
Despite the fact that the overall approach towards movie making is quite romanticized and humorous with a first look, nevertheless, the way Takayuki Hirao has dealt with his subject has resulted in an anime that presents a thorough and quite realistic perspective on how the movie industry works, from beginning to end. In that fashion, the importance of the trailer and the ways they are compiled are highlighted first, as much as some B-movie “rules” such as “the right amount of sex appeal”. The relation between directors and producers also comes to the fore as one of the central elements here, with the latter being the ones who have to spot the talent and also to reign in the artists' aspirations, within the logistics reality.
The appearance of Natalie and Braddock brings another set of comments on the fore, with the relationship of the actors with the two aforementioned, the difference between veterans and rookies, males and females, being highlighted quite eloquently. Particularly the importance of appearance for the latter category is stressed intently, in a way that shows that it is as important as actual acting in reality, in a rather pragmatic remark.
The comments continue with the post-production and how important and back-breaking editing can be, even more so when it is done by the directors themselves, while this approach closes with the difficulties of finding funds for movies, with the anime showing that financially speaking, cinema is not exactly a sound investment.
Lastly, and in an ingenious, multileveled, and meta comment that concludes the film, Hirao refers to the duration of movies nowadays, and the 90-minute limit.
Apart from context, “Pompo” also thrives in its technical aspect. The animation by new studio CLAP is obviously inspired by Yuasa's style, with the intense colors, the intricate details of the background, the varying style of characters, and the flowing of movement becoming evident throughout the movie. This approach adds much to the movie as it keeps it light from beginning to end, thus providing a relief from the seriousness of the main subject, which does become quite dramatic after a point.
“Pompo the Cinephile” is an excellent movie, one that manages to combine the fairy tale with reality in the most entertaining fashion, and one of the best anime movies we have seen lately.
