[Bride of Deimos: Orchid Suite]
Those screens warm my dark and cold heart; I love 80's OVA's, especially the weird ones. I guess youve convinced me to write a little review of a little OVA that I watched not too long ago called
Twilight Q.
Twilight Q is a two part OVA released back in
1987, it was supposed to showcase the up and coming talent in the industry; planning 7 parts, however due to low sales only 2 episodes were made. This is a short review of those two.
Part 1,
Time Knot: Reflection takes place in 1987 and revolves around a girl and her friend. While at the beach one day, scuba diving, she comes across what looks to be an old abandoned camera, submerged. Curious, she develops the film from the camera and notices that she herself happens to be in many of the pictures. She doesn't remember taking any of these pictures and tries to figure how and when they were taken and more importantly who is the boy that shes posing with in the photos that she hasn't even met yet. As she goes to the source of the camera, the company that created it, shocked at its presence they reveal that this model she has presented them with has not even been made yet and is in fact still years away from being produced. Where did the camera come from?
Directed by
Tomomi Mochizuki (Director of
Ocean waves and
House of Five Leaves), written by
Kazunori Ito (Screenplay for
Ghost in the Shell,
Patlabor The Movie 1 + 2 + TV and
Urusei Yatsura as well the script for both of the
Patlabor OVA series) and done by the same team that did
Kimagure Orange Road, this episode looks very appealing visually, full of aquatic imagery and character designs by
Akemi Takada all capped off with a somewhat ominous soundtrack composed by
Kenji Kawai. Art is directed by
Shichiro Kobayashi so you know what to expect on that front, being the art director on things like
Angel's Egg,
Berserk,
The Castle of Cagliostro,
Beautiful Dreamer and
Utena among many others such as doing the background art for
Takarajima (small world heh). Its pretty rudimentary in terms of story especially compared to the second short, but it still full of interesting little story beats and beautiful visuals. In the end its a fun watch with some comedic elements drizzled here and there.
------------------
Part 2,
The Labyrinth Real Estate - File 538 is directed by
Mamoru Oshii with art directed by
Hiromasa Ogura (Art director on
FLCL,
Ghost in the Shell,
Ninja Scroll,
Jin-Roh and the first episode of
Giant Robo as well doing some background art on a few
Ghibli films) and music yet again by
Kenji Kawai. This short is really interesting and visually stunning in a weird and unorthodox way. In essence it's just a 30 min monologue, so what you'd expect from
Oshii then! Both slow and experimental it will test the patience of the audience for sure.
A strange story and not an easy one to explain without sounding like you're crazy, it starts off on a summer day in Tokyo with an airplane that turns into a large carp and disappears.
Yeah. This isn't the only plane to do so and it has been happening a lot and while the government and the news are both confused and panicking, the public seem uninterested by the whole ordeal.
The story itself revolves around a down on his luck private detective. Living in an abandoned apartment, his job is to observe this man and a little girl that live together, day in and day out watching on. Once he actually arrives at their apartment however, the man is gone with only the little girl and a carp remaining, gasping for air next to the girl on the bed. A word processor lies on a desk in the corner of the room and as the man hits print, the document slowly starts printing as he reads what the previous man had written during his time there, slowly descending into madness.
Although very strange, it seems to have been made at an important junction in
Oshii's life, not too long after
Urusei Yatsura had concluded, it seems as if he was down on his luck and very depressed during this period, aimless. His father was also private detective who was down on his luck so he is channeling a lot of that here and the main character bears many resemblances to
Detective Matsui from
Patlabor. The hot summer unbearable, the small room claustrophobic, all of these feelings are palpable and depict how the mind plays tricks on itself in such situations especially when youre down on your luck.
The whole thing feels like a fever dream one would have when youre both depressed and in the middle of a heat storm in a small room, staring at the same four walls each and every day. Dreaming in this situation could be seen either as an escape from reality or the harsh realities of the body breaking down under the stress but
Oshii himself has discussed in the past how in the end, these differences are almost irrelevant to him. "
For me, personally, whether it's a dream or reality isn't that important. You can't rely on memory, so the way you see yourself at any given moment is 'you,' and how you see the world around you makes up your reality."
In the end,
File 538 very experimental in its tone and can be very challenging for its viewers to sit through due to its minimalistic nature. Although it looks great, yet again its almost entirely made up of still images. The visuals are no doubt inspired by one of Oshiis favorite films, the 1962 French sci-fi
La Jetée. In the end it without a doubt seems to inherit a lot of visual cues as well as tonal cues that would latter by incorporate into
Patlabor.
Both are strange, with the first being a lot more traditional in the way in which it tells its story, containing more conventional story beats however the second short is a lot more experimental and bizarre but yet interesting and captivating. Both are flawed, seemingly rushing at the last few minutes and definitely not for everyone containing not much in the way of story at a glance, but in the end I enjoyed them quite a bit as relics from the past. Bearing the hallmarks of their respective director and artists, this work shines as a montage of their talents and creative capabilities.
7/10
