Anime On the Big Screen: “Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Thursday 5 December 2019
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 90 minutes
Production Date: 2019
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

The latter half of the year has seen some big anime films in cinemas including “Promare” and what is easily the biggest anime film of the year, “Weathering with You”. Unsurprisingly this year's Japanese Film Festival was utterly disappointing. Though the live action fare in the line up was a great improvement on previous years, there was absolutely no anime at all. Masaaki Yuasa’s “Ride Your Wave” and the latest "Detective Conan" film screened in all capitals except Canberra, which was baffling. Dendy have settled into a pattern with anime screenings; twice a day in the evening which isn’t too bad. The Canberra Centre has cordoned off the old food court below Dendy. It’s now apparently going to become some sort of bowling/party centre. But several months on and there seems to be no firm date when it’s going to open. It looks ugly as sin and forces patrons to hunt for food at the south end of the Canberra Centre, which is OK, but I much preferred the food court below Dendy.

Next week “Children of the Sea” is screening at Dendy and I was surprised that a poster for the film was put in a very prominent place at the entrance. The film has been to several film festivals in the country, so I’m assuming that Madman think this anime film has more of chance with a general audience than their regular fare. This “Violet Evergarden” film, is the first of two scheduled for release, and of course had promotion limited to social media. I really wasn’t expecting a great deal of people at this screening, but 18 people showed up. The weird thing was initially the entire cinema audience (including me) was entirely made up of white middle-aged men. I wondered if this was the core audience Kyoto Animation were aiming for. As we got closer to screening time more patrons showed up, mostly younger men. In the end it was a very male dominated audience with only three women, most of whom came by themselves.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it is set in a turn of the 20th century, post war, fictional Germanic/European-like country called Leidenschaftlich, the original TV series is centred around the titular character, a young girl around the age of 14. Violet is an orphan and former child solider, essentially used as a killing machine for the military. She has been fighting in the long war since she was 10. Severely injured at the end of the war, Violet has both of arms replaced with highly articulate metal prosthetics. A former Major in the army, Claudia Hodgins, takes in Violet after promising his friend, Major Gilbert Bougainvillea, to do so. Having a strong attachment to the missing, presumed dead, Gilbert (who gave her a name and cared for her) and being unable to adjust from the highly regimented military life, Violet finds it hard to adapt to her new chosen career, an Auto Memory Doll at Claudia’s CH Postal Company.

These are women who are essentially ghost writers for people who want to send letters to loved ones or even write manuscripts, and are especially important in an era with a high level of illiteracy. While her military training sets Violet up to a be a proficient and highly accurate typist, her experiences in childhood and as solider on the frontline have severely blunted her empathy and feelings for others. But over the course of the series she learns how to interpret and express the feelings of her clients via the letters she writes for them. In doing so she begins to regain her humanity and emotions back, becoming less machine like. After writing a series of publicly published letters for the princess of the Drossel Royal Family to her fiancé, she becomes an in-demand Auto Memory Doll who touches the lives of many the clients who request her services.

This film is based upon the second chapter of the “Violet Evergarden Gaiden” light novel. This light novel is a collection of side stories separate to the two main light novels in the series, hence the reason why this film is referred to in promotional material as a “side story”. From what I can gather, this film takes place about mid-way through the TV series, though it could easily take place directly after it. Violet has been commissioned by the Drossel Royal family to be a tutor and handmaiden for a period of three months for a young woman named Isabella York who will soon make her debut in society. Though the young woman’s family is part of the aristocracy, she certainly doesn’t act like it. Isabella is quite sickly, feels like she is trapped in her girls only boarding school and initially resents the presence of Violet. She also feels that the other girls at the school only want to be friends with her and others in order to make connections with other aristocratic families.

However, as the weeks go on as Violet trains her in etiquette and deportment, Isabella starts to bond and open up to her. Isabella later reveals that her upbringing wasn’t exactly a privileged one and that the current predicament she finds herself in was in fact a sacrifice she had to make in order to keep a loved one safe. She has come to regret the choice she has made, but felt she had no other choice. Though she has not been tasked with her usual Auto Memory Doll work, Violet helps Isabella write a letter to Isabella's loved one. The second part of the film takes place three years after Violet’s three month stay at the boarding school. A young girl named Taylor Bartlett arrives unannounced at the CH Postal Company. She announces she wishes to see Violet who had promised her in a letter several years ago to come to her if she needed anything.

It is soon revealed that Taylor has run away from the orphanage she was at and that she wants a job at the postal company. She decides to become a postman after taking a liking to the young postman Benedict Blue, whom she wants to be an apprentice to, much to his annoyance. After Violet pleads with Claudia to take her on as an apprentice, they soon discover that she is illiterate. Benedict along with Violet and the other staff develop a training schedule for Taylor who takes her work seriously. Taylor reveals that she would like to write a letter to the person who cared for her. Unfortunately, she seems to have disappeared several years ago. Benedict is tasked with the almost impossible mission of tracing her last known whereabouts and following every last possible lead to find where she is now residing.

Unlike the story arc in the original TV series where the focus was almost always solely on Violet and her development from an almost robotic child solider to a fully functioning human being (via her regaining her emotions and empathy for others), this film focuses on the client’s stories. Admittedly this was also a large focus of the TV series as well, but as Violet interacted with and preformed her writing duties for her clients, she not only changed the lives and touched others hearts, she regained her humanity and developed as a person too. The big change in this film is Violet moving away from her normal job as Auto Memory Doll and being tasked with guiding a reluctant young woman in ways of the aristocracy by teaching her etiquette and deportment. Admittedly this was hard for me to swallow. In the beginning of the TV series, Violet is rather direct and cold. I understand that she has learnt much in the time she became an Auto Memory Doll, but her extensive knowledge of etiquette amongst members of the aristocracy seems a bit implausible.

In reality the somewhat implausible set up for the first half of the film is pretty much an excuse to explore the relationship that develops between Isabella and Violet. This is probably the best part of the film. Ever so slowly the bonds develop between the two. Isabella may seem rather bratty, but we soon learn why she seems so out of place in an all-girl boarding school for the rich. While I have seen some reviews suggest the relationship is explicitly a Yuri one, I think people are projecting their wishes onto the story. Sure, there are some hints of it at various scenes but it’s not all that explicit, and even if it was it's a one way street with Violet not really reciprocating. This section of the film culminates in a dress rehearsal for the debutante’s ball with Violet playing the male role as Isabella’s dance partner, in an outfit that is half coat and tails and half dress. The dance choreography, the focus on Isabella initial nervousness, and latter joy, and the exquisite details of the ballroom easily make this sequence the highlight of the film. The section of the film does feel somewhat similar to Oscar and Marie Antoinette's relationship in “Rose of Versailles”.

The second half of the film is more subdued and light-hearted with the focus on the young girl, Taylor. I have read reviews which suggest the transition between the two halves is disjointed and doesn’t work well. Without giving away spoilers, I can only say this is complete bunkum. The second half of the film is clearly set up during the first half. The big surprise in this half of the film is the focus on mailman Benedict Blue, who rather reluctantly takes on the role of training Taylor Bartlett. While Benedict did come off as rather self-centred in the TV series, here the screenwriters make him more likeable and shows that he has far more empathy for others than he actually lets on. Taylor’s story may be too saccharine for some, especially with the tear-jerking finale, but I think the screenplay is well written enough that it doesn’t become maudlin.

Apart from an incredibly emotional climax, in which two people are destined to be apart from each other forever due to class structures and the societal mores of the time, a lot of focus of the film is how Leidenschaftlich is moving away from its militaristic past and into a new age. The city is seen to be in state of transformation with a large Eiffel Tower-like structure, that can be seen from almost everywhere in the city, under construction. As time has passed, subtle changes have been made to the main and secondary character designs. However, it is Violet’s work colleague and fellow Auto Memory Doll, Iris Cannary, who has transformed the most. So much so that I initially did not recognise her.

This film of course is the first anime to be released by Kyoto Animation after the shocking and devastating arson attack on their main studio in Fushimi ward, Kyoto. Breaking away from company practice of not crediting staffers who haven’t worked with the company for less than a year, the name of every single person who worked on the film, including those who perished in the incident, appears during the end credits. Putting aside the content of the film, having the knowledge of that by itself makes the film a very haunting experience tinged with sadness. Wrapping up, I think this movie looks fantastic and is really well produced. While it does feel like two TV episodes have been extended and edited together, both parts of the film complement each other and work well as a whole. I think to a degree Violet’s transformation as a handmaiden who schools a young woman on the etiquette of the aristocracy is a bit hard to swallow, but I could suspend my disbelief. The film fits in well with the TV series and I am looking forward to the sequel film which should appear in cinemas next year. 7.5 out of 10.