She’s a marvellous, magical character who, in this adaptation of the popular manga, takes second place to the male auteur she has plucked from obscurity.
Pompo has carved out a successful career producing B-grade flicks that make money and feature — as an early film shoot indicates — bikinis and octopuses. “As long as the lead actress looks attractive, it’s a good movie,” insists Pompo. Her second maxim — “anything that runs longer than 90 minutes is disrespectful to the audience’s time” — is one Pompo: The Cinéphile cheerfully adheres to.
When new assistant Gene Fini reads a prestige project penned (overnight) by Pompo, and decides that it’s a staggering work of genius, Pompo happily hires him as the film’s director. She soon counter-casts Natalie, a poignantly plain wannabe who is fresh off the bus in Nyallywood, and the reclusive “world’s greatest actor”, Martin Braddock.
Along the way there are financial crises, reshoots and an unscheduled mud fight. Mostly, the production is hampered by Gene’s creative slumps and perfectionist tendencies. If only the introspective movie-maker had a bit more of the showmanship of a young Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth. The script’s insistence on the director’s absolute primacy — and the consequent sidelining of the far more memorable title character — can be as repetitive as it is ridiculous. Why exactly is tortured artist Gene editing his own film?
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Still, it’s hard not to be tickled by Meister, the visually dazzling, unabashedly mawkish film-within-the-film, in which an ageing, jaded conductor is re-energised by his friendship with a farm girl in the Swiss Alps. (Imagine what an AI might spit out after inputting a series of Bridges of Madison County-era Oscar-winners.)
The sparkly, lively Pompo is the second feature-length production to emerge from Clap Animation Studio. It bodes well for the same imprint’s upcoming adaptation of Mei Hachimoku’s The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes.
