© 1997 Be-Papas. SAITO CHIHO/SHOGAKUKAN.SHOKAKU TV-TOKYO. © 1999-2000 Shojo Kakumei UTENA Seisaku Iinkai.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie.
Theatrical feature, 1999. Director: Kunihiko Ikuhara. 87 minutes. Price & format: VHS English language $19.99; DVD bilingual $29.99. Distributor: Software Sculptors/Central Park Media.

Many anime theatrical features based upon popular TV series offer impressive visuals, but stories that are hard to follow by viewers who are not familiar with the TV series and characters. Shojo Kakumei Utena (translated in the Japanese series into French as La Fillette Revolutionnaire Utena) carries this to extremes. The TV series itself (39 half-hour episodes, April 2 to December 24, 1997) was so surrealistic that American fans compared it to Patrick McGoohan's cult favorite The Prisoner, in presenting an imaginative and suspenseful drama around a protagonist imprisoned in a bizarre, luxurious but unexplained community. Utena Tenjou is just entering the Ohtori Academy, apparently an exclusive city-sized high school of soaring towers smothered in rose gardens. Most of the girls dress in frilly schoolgirl uniforms, while the Student Council (male and female) wear 18th century military officers' uniforms styled upon the courtiers at Louis XVI's Versailles. Admission to the Student Council is by membership in the Academy's Fencing Club. The best duelist wins the symbolic title of fiance to the Rose Bride, the sister (Anthy) of the Academy's unseen young Headmaster Akio Himemiya. The arrogant boys on the Council abuse Anthy. The tomboyish Utena duels for the title, at first just to free Anthy from abuse, but as the story progresses their friendship takes on lesbian overtones. Utena is always overflowing with cryptic dialogue amidst imagery of roses, the Versailles court, Tarot cards (notably the chariot evolving into the modern sports cars fancied by the effete "Prince" Akio), impossibly attenuated towers stretching to Heaven, Indonesian shadow puppetry, and more; overlaid with portentous hints about the need to revolutionize the world. The Student Council's goal, endlessly repeated (in French), is: "If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever being born. We are the chick, the World is our egg. If we do not crack the World's shell, we will die without truly being born. Smash the World's shell...For the Revolution of the World!" The movie (Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Adolescence of Utena is the actual Japanese title, animated by J.C. Staff, released August 14, 1999) condenses this into an abstract semi-religious allegory, with the Academy as a womb that needs the pampered students to break out or eventually die stillborn. Even critics who complain that the story is incomprehensible agree that Ikuhara's direction and the graphics (character designs by Shinya Hasegawa, based upon the original comic book art of Chiho Saito) are so stunning that this should not be missed. The swooping angular panoramas around the rose-emblemed ethereal campus sometimes looks like a robotic multiplane camera running berserk, but they are always impressive. The character interaction remains gripping even if you are never sure just who the characters are. Utena is an excellent example of anime's "any given scene would look beautiful as a framed still picture" allure. (Just don't ask about the Carwash of the Gods...)