Amateur Recommendation Hour: Magnetic Rose

Today’s recommendation is the kind of art that is more susceptible to falling through the cracks as it is a smaller part of a comparatively small whole. Short stories can often find themselves lost in the zeitgeist in favor of large scale feature films, long running series, and expansive fictional universes. Only when adapted into other art forms do they have a chance to gain a wider audience, and even then, that audience is not of the scale to give it the wide recognition or impact that its quality may ultimately deserve. Long have I loved the standalone work that doesn’t need multiple entries, long runtimes or extended universes to be something more than sum of their parts or the time they’re allotted.

“Magnetic Rose” is the first part of a 1995 anthology anime film called “Memories” based on three science fiction manga short stories by famed director of the trail blazing and monumentally important anime film “Akira” Katsuhiro Otomo, who would oversee the project at large as an executive producer. Animated by long-standing and enduring Studio 4°C, directed by co-founder himself Koji Morimoto, and written by Satoshi Kon, the surrealist master himself, whose career in the anime industry was still very young. And if that’s not enough talent, Magnetic Rose’s soundtrack was composed by the goddess of music herself, Yoko Kanno. The creative muscle involved in Memories as a whole is genuinely staggering.

The Corona, a deep space salvage freighter is out on a mission. About to wrap up and start the long trek home, they receive a distress signal. After deliberation amongst the small crew of six men they decide to check it out since it is not too far out of their way. Upon arriving in the vicinity of the distress signal they discover a giant space station surrounded by a spaceship graveyard. The crew’s two engineers, Heintz and Miguel, make their way into the space station, far deeper down than one would expect, even for the size of it. Contrary to what they, or anyone in this position would expect they discover a towering and opulent interior of European architecture. Gilded walls, towering marble pillars adorn the large open atrium. But more importantly of all, no signs of life.

It is within that environmental detail that the sense of, not only place, but history. Both as it relates to that of the history architecture of humanity but personal history for the person/people who lived here. As Heintz and Miguel venture further into the station they discover a large dining room, a modestly sized bedroom, and a closet packed to the brim with more dresses than one could possibly imagine. The cel animation so smooth and authentic it puts modern animation quality to shame. And it is in that rawness and reality of it’s art style that juxtaposes brilliantly the feeling of falseness. The facade of life that is nothing more than a facsimile of what was, what wants, and what won’t be, no matter how much we want to pretend it’s real, there is no escape.

Each character’s mannerisms, both physically and in the way they speak, doing as much to inform us as to who they are and what they have lived, and dialogue itself could. Even in the briefest snapshots of personal history we are given for Heintz and Miguel, I feel a soul in each of them that not only shows how they go about discovering more and more of the space station and how they react to what they see in it, but also in what determines their fates within the story’s resolution but informs why they would do what they did and what that was important.

Yoko Kanno's score creates a magnificent and boisterous soundscape that matches the tone of the environment but also the gravity and commanding presence that the space stations owner is all too keen on reminding us of. The music wants its voice to be heard, to be the center of attention, to render all and everything beneath it and overpowering in its control. But doing so without being overbearing to the dialogue or atmosphere of the theatre of Magnetic Rose to not take potential viewers out of itself while still giving personality and enhancing the character. As is often the case with Kanno’s works, the instrumentation is varied yet the sound itself is consistent and laser-focused. The soundscape is different than one would expect from space horror and surrealism but as usual, Yoko Kanno proves that she is both the jack of all and master of genres creating a memorable and distinctly different score.

As is a common motif in Satoshi Kon’s works, Magnetic Rose’s main theme is that of escapism and the natural human inclination, in spite of everything we are capable of and the beauty we have the capability of living, that we have the propensity to run away from it, while maybe necessary in small doses, that some wish for a permanence in it. And all the means through which we have to escape from it at our disposal. We can escape through art and fantasy, by becoming detached from ourselves, and in maybe it’s most terrifying and indistinguishable form, we can escape INTO ourselves, more specifically our memories.

My interpretation of what this work is ultimately about, what it’s core message is, is one of the dangers of retreating so far, so fervently, and with a detrimental reverence into one’s memories that it consumes everything about us to the point where we are willing to treat our futures as filling the new space with the same outlines from before. Looking so desperately to recreate what was rather than confront the unknown of what could be that we limit out own potentials as not just people, but as the entire story and journey of our lives all encompassed into a collective soul. Trying desperately to replace people, places, with the roles in which we think they are supposed to fit in this already-determined story we want to re-live over and over again. Rather than adapting to make space for the new to carve different dimensions into our journey. 

Rather than looking to replace what we have with novel and varied experiences there are those who make the choice to remain inflexible, addicted to our pasts in nothing but a continued dilution of truth. Seeking out the new and unknown, while scary, is still less of a horror than frantically trying to supplant the individual aspects in what is ultimately nothing more than a stage-play. To repeat an inorganic recreation in a solipsistic portrayal of experiences with different faces, places, and sounds, dulling with each passing performance.