Summary
An engagingly told youth fantasy that isn’t short on imagination, but nor is it short on tangling narrative threads either.
There are at least two English titles attached to the latest film from animation legend Kenji Kamiyama, the man behind Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the Cyborg 009 series. The original title literally translates to Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me, sometimes abbreviated to Napping Princess. Thankfully the far less passive title of ANCIEN AND THE MAGIC TABLET (ひるね姫 〜知らないワタシの物語〜) is far more indicative of the momentum of this animated sci-fi film.
Kamiyama wastes little time in immersing us in the neo-steampunk kingdom of Heartland, where the King has decreed that constant car ownership is the key to happiness. Ancien uses her tablet computer to upload spells that impact the real world, including her stuffed toy Joy. All these things are in the dreams of school student Kokone (Mitsuki Takahata), but as her father becomes the centre of a mystery she wonders if there is more than meets the eye.
Mostly targeted at younger audiences, Kamiyama does a fine job of world-building. Even though it is set in the days before the 2020 Olympics, there’s a (magical) realism to the way the events unfold. Indeed, the notion of a computer tablet based magic, where spells are ‘uploaded’ to their subjects, is an intriguing one. The simple dichotomy between the waking and dream worlds allow us to take the fantastical elements at face value, avoiding copious exposition. Plenty of hints are dropped about the nature of the connections between these characters, setting up something of a mystery from the start, and it is certainly one that will engage those younger audiences.
As the lines between the dreaming state and the “real” world start to blur, like in Mamoru Hosada’s now classic Summer Wars, Kamiyama taps into a sense of escapist fun that connects to Kokone’s own reality in a tangible way. The animation itself is a mixture of styles, from the cutesy and wistful seaside heorine and her anthropomorphic bear, to the giant mechanised Engineheads that fight an attacking Colossus in the harbour (think: Pacific Rim).
Which is where ANCIEN AND THE MAGIC TABLET may lose a few audience members, pushing a tonal imbalance for the sake of having all the toys out on the carpet. There’s so much going on in the third act that it loses focus, cutting rapidly between the realities almost to the point of confusion. Yet as Takahata’s cover of “Daydream Believer” floats in over the credits, you can sit back and let the film’s dreamlike outlook wash over you.
2017 | Japan | DIR: Kenji Kamiyama | WRITER: Kenji Kamiyama | CAST: Mitsuki Takahata, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Tomoya Maeno, Rie Kugimiya, Arata Furuta, Hideki Takahashi, Yōsuke Eguchi | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF/JFF (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: August 2017 (MIFF)
