Pompo the Cinephile follows the exploits of a young prodigy film producer, Pompo, who follows in her grandfather’s footsteps in the movie business of Nyallywood. On an inspired hunch, Pompo’s latest project involves her own script as the directorial debut of her executive assistant, Gene, and the headlining of unknown actress Lily. When Pompo pulls some strings to also attach the legendary retired actor Martin Braddock to the project, the result is a winding series of light, circumstantial reflections on the intuitive and unpredictable art of movie-making.
A lush, saturated color pallet illustrates the film’s world, everywhere from the skyscrapers of an alternate-reality West Coast to the Swiss Alps of on-location shooting. While there’s no explicit fantasy in the film, the bold shojo art style (surely traced from Hirao’s Yoyo and Nene days) imbues the inner workings of movie making with a dreamy quality. The plot is brisk and entertaining—issues of getting the right scene, editing trailers and films down to the perfect length, the anxieties of young creators getting their big break—all coming in and out with breezy self-assuredness.
The film is not afraid to play with formal elements to help convey the story in an entertaining way, whether inserting letterboxed aspect ratios to distinguish director Gene’s filmed scenes from the on-set work, or to highlight the film’s opening and certain scenes with the framing devices of analog film reels. The film often playfully invites the audience to think about these formalistic choices in a tongue-in-cheek way—attention is drawn to the fact that Pompo states a preference for film lengths just so happening to coincide with Pompo’s 90-minute runtime. Gene and Pompo’s film and the film itself take on an endearing, comedic metatextuality that consciously makes the audience consider what makes a movie tick. This is the heart of the film, and it does so in a competent and entertaining way.
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That said, the film’s self-aware invitation to consider the elements of production also seems to unintentionally reveal a lot of the film’s all-too-common narrative and directorial anime conventions. Thinking critically about what’s on-screen is fun when seeing how Gene’s shot turns out, but not as enjoyable when looking at certain scenes’ fairly noticeable CGI set-pieces or a liberal usage of lens flare sky-shots that would give even Makoto Shinkai a run for his money. While many films about filmmaking tend to focus on how the subject industry has changed over the years—something that could have been very interesting in a scene with the famous actor character—these types of considerations are never explored. The characters’ mannerisms and outlooks seldom evolve in the film’s runtime. A problem is presented, Gene and Lily react with comedic anime-style anxiety, and matters tend to get swiftly resolved via Pompo’s shojo-infused spunk. When questions of budgets and funding arise, the course of action takes on twists and schemes more narratively at home next to Digimon than Sunset Boulevard. Despite being a love letter to the movies, the film’s references to Cinema Paradiso and Taxi Driver likely won’t be enough to sway the most anime-averse of film lovers. If they can handle the film’s wider saturation with anime conventions, though, it’ll provide some saccharine fun.
With all these in mind, Pompo the Cinephile is still a fun film with a lot of heart. It doesn’t have the biggest innovations from either contemporary anime or earlier films-about-film, but it combines these two in a unique, entertaining vision. If you like anime and want a brisk piece about the art of creativity, you may very well find yourself in its ultimate question: For who are movies made?
For information and tickets on select screenings on April 27 and 28, see GKIDS.
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