Re: R.I.P.

AVC: It seems odd that you programmed the anime Summer Wars for The Watching Hour, which doesn’t seem to fit in with the aesthetic.

KG: When I was starting to program the festival, Satoshi Kon just died, and that really pissed me off. I love his stuff, and I enjoy anime, but it sort of exploded into a world I’m not really happy with. I dismiss a lot of it, and I don’t get a lot of it. And what I like about Kon is he made anime that make you think, “Why is this animated? ’Cause this totally could have been a live action film.” With Kon, what he did was animate everything, and it made it far more interesting, even though he could have done it live action. Miyazaki is great, but he’s his own world, and now he’s been sort of Disneyfied a bit. Even though he’s special, it’s still not the illustrated reality that I really like to see.

And so Summer Wars came along and, even though it has a really fantastical other world in the film, the whole social network that exists is actually like a real thing. It’s deeply rooted in the reality that exists, and using the same ideas of these two different worlds...you just have to think about one extra thing. For example, what if Facebook existed as this weird organic entity? That’s just the one place you have to go, and it opens up your imagination to a whole other thing. I’m actually happy Summer Wars is accessible to everybody of all ages. You won’t be bored if you’re older, and your mind will be blown if you’re younger.

Il est de ces films dont on ne comprend décidément pas la confidentialité. Enfin plutôt si: on sait combien un distributeur peut, faute de moyen ou de talent, saboter la carrière d'une oeuvre et, à l'inverse, comment une maison fièrement assise sur ses dollars peut nous vendre à peu près tout et n'importe quoi (il suffit de comparer les box offices du Paprika de Satoshi Kon et de l'Inception de Christopher Nolan pour s'en convaincre encore récemment - le populaire second n'étant guère plus inventif, à bien y regarder et sur un sujet fort proche, que le fabuleux premier !). La bonne nouvelle, d'égoïste spectateur, de ces scandaleuses situations est bien sûr qu'il nous reste donc, tandis qu'on clame partout le cinéma rédhibitoirement calanché, d'inouïes pépites à découvrir. Ainsi de Messiah of Evil. Signé par un couple de scénaristes, Willard Huyck et Gloria Katz, à velléités d'objectifs, ce premier coup d'essai s'inscrit bien sur dans la grande tradition des premiers films contr...