I
highly recommend that one listens to the “Millennium Actress Original
Soundtrack” whilst reading this piece of analytical content about it. It is one
thing to merely read about music, but it is something entirely different to
hear it for oneself. LINK. Enjoy!
After
my initial viewing of “Millennium Actress,” I was both fully in love and firmly
committed to the idea that the music itself holds tantalizingly animated and
evocative clues to the story, themes, and overall experience of the film as a
result of the impact the final song, titled “Rotation (LOTUS-2),” had on me. Despite
the linguistic disparity in it being sung in Japanese, I believe that the
feeling that the song gave me was highly indicative and reflective of that film
that I had just experienced. In short, the music made perfect sense to me as a
wonderful theme at the end of the film, wherein it takes all the ideas present
in the film and furthers them to a thematic conclusion all within a decisive,
albeit short, musical piece.
Upon listening to the
full soundtrack in far more careful bouts of enjoyment and analysis, it seems
as though the entirety of the film’s music is carefully crafted to reflect and,
more importantly, further what is committed to the screen in animated form. In
essence, the music of “Millennium Actress” is in and of itself an illusion
specifically because it reflects many of the same obvious and not so obvious
symbols, ideas, and themes that the film exhibits in its runtime, with it being
filled with elements of dreams, fantasies, and the every-present state of
reality in an objective and subjective sense.
Indeed, it seems as
though the film’s director, the late Satoshi Kon, really was right when he
called working with the soundtrack’s creator, Susumu Hirasawa, a “dream come
true” because it really does seem like it helped make “Millennium Actress” the
stellar and intricate film that it is, wherein the two connected works of art
are both describable and indescribable at the same time. In much the same
manner as Chiyoko’s willful and endless chase of the painter and the girl she
once was, Hirasawa’s music, along with a central piece of supplemental
material, is one of the key things that seems to help bind the millennium and
lifetime-spanning illusion of “Millennium Actress” into a single continuity
that can and will endure until the end of time.
The
story of how “Millennium Actress’” music came about is somewhat similar to the
story of how Genya came to give Chiyoko her long-lost key and tape an interview
with her for a documentary after being a devoted fan of her work for a good
portion of his own life. However, the real-world counterpart is not so
fantastical and coincidental so much as it seems like it was simply two artists
finally connecting with one another in order to produce a jointly-made work
that highlighted their strengths and style. In essence, Satoshi Kon and Susumu
Hirasawa were cut from the “same cloth” as far as style, themes, and influences
while making their artistic careers out of entirely different mediums, with one
being music and the other being, at least stylistically, animation.
Kon
had been a fan of Hirasawa’s work for many years prior to the former making his
directorial debut with “Perfect Blue” in 1997. At that point, Hirasawa had been
making Japanese electro and techopop for roughly two decades, wherein his work
with the band P-Model was successful before he launched a solo career in 1989. It
was not until Kon had started work on “Millennium Actress” at the turn of the
millennium that he got his chance to work with the musician. To quote Kon
himself: “When I started developing the story, I wanted to use his music so
badly…This film could not be ‘Millennium Actress’ without Hirasawa’s music.” In
that sense, it seems as though Kon actually created the film with a specific
soundtrack in mind from the very beginning, with the music being an integral
part of the film and not the afterthought that some films, both live-action and
animated, seem to believe it to be. The music of the film was very much crafted
with the same influences, themes, and style that the animation and story were
crafted from, with illusions, dreams, and reality all melding together into one
seamless continuity thanks to that music coming from a similar mind as the
person that created the overarching work in the first place. In short, the story
of making of the film’s soundtrack may be seen to have set that music up to
make the reflective and transformative properties of itself a key part of the
film in said music being crafted by similar minds, in similar styles, and for
the one singular purpose that is the film’s illusion itself.
With
the story of how the music of “Millennium Actress” came about now out of the
way, one can now delve into the vast soundscape of the music itself, with its
many bombastic, contradictory, and anachronistic pieces interspersed with
delightfully poignant pieces that wholly reflect and transform the scenes to
which they are set.
There
are a total of twelve pieces in the official “Millennium Actress Original
Soundtrack.” The first eleven tracks include:
Parts
of these loan themselves from other pieces in Hirasawa’s oeuvre, with the three
“Chiyoko’s Theme Mode”(s) being crafted in part from his song “Propeller of the
Wise Man.” The tracks “Lotus Gate” and “Circle in Circle” are also derived from
“Landscape-1” and “Kun Mae #3).
However,
there are three pieces out of these eleven tracks that are of particular note:
“Prince of Key,” “Run,” and “Actress in Time Layers.” These three tracks beautifully reflect and
transform the scenes that they are set to in their own particular ways to great
emotional and thematic effect. For example, the title and general feeling of “Run”
is an accurate representation of the theme of the scene it is set to, wherein
Chiyoko, on her endless chase of her painter, whisks herself through the years
from the era of the late Tokugawa Shogunate, all the way through the Meiji
Restoration, to the high-life, prosperous days of the 1920s all in a few simple
transitions. This particular piece is a very uplifting and somewhat loud or
bombastic piece that really gives one the feeling of Chiyoko’s continued chase.
It is no so much loud for the sake of being loud as it is loud for the sake of
highlighting the consistency with which she pursues the painter, almost in a
cyclical fashion due to the background melody that repeats a number of times
through it the track.
In another example, “Actress
in Time Layers” is almost pivotally important due to its place as the music
backdrop to Chiyoko’s frantic, albeit committed, dash to Hokkaido after finding
her lost key and receiving the decades-old letter from her painter. The
background sound of what seems to be a simple snare drum or even a triangle
(I’m no musical expert…) does an extremely effective job at reaching up the
stakes of Chiyoko’s dash, wherein it seems to be always building and
ever-present with no end in sight. Reflecting an idea of “Run,” the background
seems to have an almost haunting continuity throughout its runtime, with it
never ceasing or even slowing down, almost reflecting Chiyoko’s slow and
methodical, but still abundantly committed, chase of her “prince charming.” The
vocals in their piece are haunting in and of themselves, especially due to the
inclusion of the visuals of the wraith taunting Chiyoko. The track also seems
to itself climax a few times throughout its runtime, thereby reflecting the
“mini-climaxes” and problems that Chiyoko has to deal with on her northward
dash. In effect, “Actress in Time Layers” reflects the pivotal and climatic
scene it is set to in a very effective and transformative way, with the tension
of the scene being tuned up and the feeling of Chiyoko’s frantic dash being
firmly imparted in the ears of the audience.
In the final instance,
the track “Prince of Key” seems to be very important due to the fact that one
can retroactively hear all of the various other pieces of the film’s music
within said particular piece, wherein there are elements of “Rotation
(LOTUS-2),” “Chiyoko’s Theme Modes,” and “The Gate of Desire.” These pieces all
seem to meld together into a very fluid and serene piece that reflects the
visual of Chiyoko wandering a destroyed Tokyo after the end of World War II,
during which she finds the memento that the painter left for her during their
shared winter night all those years ago. In the scene itself, it may be said
that Chiyoko, despite being surrounded by the ruins of her country and home,
resolves to follow the painter and the girl that fell in love with him and the
dream he shared with him upon discovering the memento that he left for her on
the storeroom wall, which happens to be a picture of that young girl and the
phrase “Until we meet again.” The music seems to reflect this sentiment in its
serene and peaceful quality, along with its rotation-like background sound and
melody. Overall, this piece reflects the memento that Chiyoko finds in it being
partially a visage of a bygone age that one can never grasp again. In fact,
elements of this piece is also played during the scene where Chiyoko and the
painter share their fateful conversation in the storeroom. In effect, this
piece seems to reflect the very essence that Chiyoko is chasing: the portrait
of a young girl caught up in the dream of one day meeting her destined “prince
charming.” Furthermore, the title of the piece itself is reflective of the
status of both her key and her “prince” wherein the painter is embodied in the
key itself, which is the most important thing there is to Chiyoko as it allows
her to forever hold onto and chase the young girl that imbued the key with that
meaning. The painter is the “Prince of Key” because he has seemingly been
fatefully tied to the state of the key in Chiyoko’s eyes, with the loss or
gaining of the key hailing drastic and long-lasting changes in her life, for
better or worse. Despite the fact that her painter died during the greatest
conflict in human history, her prince, key, and chase still remain in the form
of this track and the memento that Chiyoko finds in the ruins of her home. This
reminds her, Genya, and Kyoji, and by extension the audience, of her chase and,
more importantly, what it meant to her, thereby cementing her path in life
despite a wholly transformed world and society. All in all, these pieces almost perfectly
reflect and transform the scenes that they accompany due to their own unique
qualities and how they were created in the first place.
In
contrast to the eleven other tracks, the final piece of the soundtrack may be
said to represent and reflect the whole of “Millennium Actress” in just under
four minutes of music due to it evocative and poignant lyrics and its
all-important place as both the end credits song and the piece that seems to
send Chiyoko off into eternity. With that, the track’s lyrics are:
“The golden moon causes millions of dewdrops to ascend
Your battered dreams, which come to this prison of night, bloom
Flickering, in this time; come, tens of thousands of dawns
The fleets of ships, which travel in parallel, launch on all your days
Your battered dreams, which come to this prison of night, bloom
Flickering, in this time; come, tens of thousands of dawns
The fleets of ships, which travel in parallel, launch on all your days
Like the clouds which move, and are born at random
Your voice, which knows a thousand years, echoes in the moon
Your voice, which knows a thousand years, echoes in the moon
The blooming samsara oh
The blooming lotus oh
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh
The blooming lotus oh
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh
The distant past, and the distant today will still be here even tomorrow
Golden days will exist all at once, if the forgotten you awakens
The stars which travel in parallel are now reflected like metaphors
The flowers in the field, which bloom at random, are all remembering you
Golden days will exist all at once, if the forgotten you awakens
The stars which travel in parallel are now reflected like metaphors
The flowers in the field, which bloom at random, are all remembering you
The blooming samsara oh
The blooming lotus oh
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh
The blooming lotus oh
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh
The blooming samsara oh
The blooming lotus oh
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh.”
Echo, for a thousand years oh
Echo, in every second oh.”
In reading these lyrics for the
first time, especially for a non-Japanese speaker, they seem to be both
confusing and disorientating in the many different things that it references.
Many of the references and comparisons present in this song are allusions and
metaphors for what the title of the piece denotes, rotation, along with the
essence of Chiyoko’s life. In describing the lyrics, one must piece together
understanding by systematically uncovering and chaining together the meaning of
the allusions and metaphors, thereby yielding a huge part of the track’s
significance as to why it may be considered the theme song of “Millennium
Actress.”
In
the case of the opening line, the “golden moon” may be seen to represent
eternal chases and pursuits that can take one to the heavens and back in
Japanese mythology and storytelling, and the “millions of dewdrops” may be a
metaphor for the ordinary life in their formation due to the condensation and
collection of water upon all that reaches toward the sky. The second line keys
into the idea that one’s dreams become “battered,” disillusioned, and warped
throughout the course of their life due to the weight and the “prison of night”
that is the above dewdrops. In their ascension, the lifting dewdrops of ordinary
life are said to allow for those “battered dreams” to take a new shape and fully
“bloom.” The third line’s “tens of thousands of dawns” seem to be an indication
that such a lifting of the dewdrops of ordinary life will occur throughout
one’s life if one does a specific action to allow for said process to happen.
The fourth line’s statement that “the fleets of ships…launch on all your days”
may mean that these thousands of dawns may also be represented the launch of
either aquatic ships or even the spaceships that are seen in the film, with the
latter seeming to reflect the image of a rising sun or coming dawn in its
ignition sequence and liftoff. The “parallel” description in the fourth line is
intriguing in its specificity, meaning that it has a greater significance in
its placement; however, it seems to be a reference to the fact that many things
are born from a single source and that two entirely different things may be
bound together by a small, but not insignificant, thread of fate. While the
ships are on different journeys, it seems that the fact that they have a shared
connection, in them travelling in parallel, is the thing that holds them
together, with this idea being represented by the connection between the
painter’s chase of his painting in Hokkaido and Chiyoko’s own pursuit of him
wherein they have different paths born of the same place and idea.
The
second stanza of the song is a little more confusing, but one could view the
randomly born clouds as the turns of fate or random bits of chance that seem to
govern Chiyoko’s life, as typified in her life seemingly being tied to
earthquakes, and many of the lives of ordinary people. The voice echoed in the
song is said to echo in the moon, meaning that said voice echoes on an eternal
chase to heaven and beyond if the first stanza is any indication of what the
moon representing. In ringing true with the film’s title, said voice is said to
“know a thousand years,” or a millennium, in its echoing in the moon, meaning
that such an eternal chase really is eternal so far as human are concerned. With
that, these first two stanza’s seem to echo a sentiment and idea that one’s
tired old dreams, which have lasted and been pursued for what seems like
eternity, are tied to everyone else’s in them being weighed down by ordinary
life and all the troubles that it holds, but one can overcome that state and
let the turns of fate that have guided said dreams to seize the reigns and make
those dreams bloom anew with the coming dawn.
The
next stanza, or what may be considered the chorus, holds the pair of symbols
that denote the central connections between the song, its title, and a few
scenes in the film itself. The Sanskrit word “Saṃsāra” present in this stanza
has the very important connotation of a rotation-like or cyclic change, or the
theory of rebirth, that is present in the Indian religions. In essence, “Saṃsāra” may be seen as the rotation in “Rotation
(LOTUS-2),” wherein the song’s instrument seem to repeat themselves endlessly
throughout the track. In the “Saṃsāra” blooming, the lyrics may be forming a
connection between the blooming and decay of annual flowers and other plants
and the overall cyclical nature of the film itself, with Chiyoko seemingly
repeating the same few scenes for a majority of her life to no avail in
actually succeeding in catching up with the painter and herself. Chiyoko is in
a time-loop throughout the film, but that loop of time is transported and
changed to meet the present time of her life, with each “failure” leading to a
renewed chase so long as she has her key. With that, the next line’s inclusion
of the “blooming lotus” as a symbol is directly tied to the film itself due to
the facts that Chiyoko both loves and has lotuses in her garden, Genya’s studio
is named “lotus,” and their shared line of dialogue concerning the flower’s
significance. In the above scene near the beginning of the film, Chiyoko and
Genya reveal that the lotus’ meaning in poetry is “simple purity,” with the
camera being fixed on a view of Chiyoko’s blooming lotuses. This image is
repeated throughout the film at other key points, with fog appearing over the
lotuses in a one-off shot near the one-hour point in the film after the
middle-aged and older Chiyoko(s) realize that they cannot remember a single
thing about the painter’s face despite the fact that she resolved to follow him
anywhere and everywhere. In a sense, this is one of Chiyoko’s lowest points,
and one can obviously see the connection between a lotus attempting to bloom and
the wet, thick, moisture-laden, and dewy fog and the very same ideas and
symbols in the song itself, wherein Chiyoko’s dreams are being weighed and
watered down by ordinary life or even reality itself. The lotus, note the
singular use, is next seen at the very end of the film as Genya and Kyoji learn
that Chiyoko is dying. Indeed, the image of the lotus, wherein it is open and
in full bloom while being covered by raindrops and surrounded by fog, is
directly contrasted with the image of Chiyoko on her deathbed in a single cut,
thereby deliberately creating a connection between the dying Chiyoko and the
blooming lotus itself. In this scene, it seems as though the lotus is going to
power through the fog and dewdrops that are weighing it down and shrouding its
beauty by fully blooming and realizing its state without paying any mind to its
surroundings, thereby mimicking Chiyoko’s chase and the life she was able to
lead throughout the most chaotic and turbulent times in human history. In
circling back to the lyrics themselves, the two central symbols may be seen to
directly represent Chiyoko’s chase in the form of ever-rotating Saṃsāra as well
as what she was chasing and her attitude towards life in the form of the simple
purity of the lotus. After these two central symbols, they are said to “echo”
every second for a millennium, perhaps meaning that the blooming cyclical
process of Saṃsāra and the blooming innocence of the lotus will echo and very
much repeat itself for a thousand years, much the in the same way as Chiyoko’s
life story and her chase. This chorus goes on to repeat itself two more times
after the fourth stanza as if to reiterate and rotate back to those symbols and
their significance regarding the film and the song themselves.
In the fourth stanza, the lyrics
point to the fact that the past, present, and future will still exist so long
as the two central symbols of the song stay in bloom and echoing for what seems
like eternity. Those “golden days will exist all at once,” meaning one’s rosy
or youthful past and the promised days of the future will exist, so long as and
“if the forgotten you awakens,” which may be interpreted as the person that
experienced such days as seen in Chiyoko’s case as the young girl she once was.
In effect, these first two lines seen to reflect Chiyoko’s overarching
conclusion that the chase and her key allowed her to hold onto and reconnect
with the girl she was when she met the painter, a young woman that was
captivated by a dream that was shared by her “prince charming” who was to
spirit her away down the path in life that she wished to pursue. Chiyoko’s
memories were unlocked with the key Genya returned to her, thereby breathing
life into the golden days and dreams that she had long forgotten and allowed to
falter. The next line reflects what Chiyoko seemed to have witnessed during her
flight from our world and unto the next, wherein she seems to have seen stars
travelling in parallel. However, it is odd that it is stated that said stars
are “reflected like metaphors,” meaning that said stars may be the very same
ships that the song references earlier, with what seemed to be ships turning
into similar voyages to eternity that are bound together and connected by that
same eternal chase for something. While the stars are literally light years
apart, Chiyoko views them all as travelling in parallel, thereby creating a
metaphor and using it to reflect her feelings at the time, wherein she may be
seen as either powering past such stars, read people chasing something, or
perhaps that she herself is joining their ranks as another eternal and
ever-lasting testament to their endless and continuing pursuits. The latter
seems to mesh well with the next line, “the flowers in the field
which bloom at random are all remembering you,” due to its connotation
that those other stars and chases are all similar to one another and Chiyoko’s
as a result of them being tied to turns of fate and the cosmic randomness of
life and reality itself. The “flowers” that are in existence, perhaps Genya,
Eiko, the old policeman, and Kyoji, will always remember Chiyoko as one of
those distant, parallel travelling stars when, or if, they’ve embarked on that
final journey into eternity because they have been brought together by nothing
other than fate itself, which in this universe, and song, means the universal
randomness of reality. After this realization and final conclusion, the song
goes on to repeat the chorus two more times as if to indicate that this song
and, more importantly, what it describes are eternally repeating and rotating
in a cycle, thereby seemingly repeating, reflecting, and wholly transforming
the film and song into a story about life and eternity.
With
that, this song’s place as the music that sends Chiyoko off into eternity is
fitting as the theme song for “Millennium Actress” specifically because it,
“Rotation (LOTUS-2),” perfectly summarizes the key themes of the film all in
one bombastic and bombing end credits track that effectively and unbeatably
tells the audience that Chiyoko really is continuing her pursuit of the painter
in the next life, with her key in hand and the memories of the girl she once
was firmly at the front of her mind. All
in all, “Rotation (LOTUS-2)” tells the story of how one may come to be Chiyoko
Fujiwara, an aged actress that can bend time, space, dreams, and reality all
with the help of the most important thing there is in the form of her youthful
and undying will, as that is the one thing that has allowed her to weather the
storm of the 20th century and beyond while living the life she
wanted to live. That will, and its timeless echoes, allows the cycle to
continue rotating and for the lotus to fully bloom, leading to the golden days
coming back into existence and the person that one has forgotten to receive a
new lease on life. In the end, the “Rotation (LOTUS-2)” really is the theme
song of “Millennium Actress” because it is as important as the film that came
before it.
With
the soundscape of Chiyoko’s chase and the film’s theme song out of the way, it
is prudent that one takes a look at the image was, consciously or
unconsciously, created to represent the music and the entire film in a single
image. The image graces the cover of the CD case for the “Millennium Actress
Original Soundtrack,” and it was lovingly crafted by Kon in 2002 while he was
on his way to meet with Hirasawa and his record label to discuss the music of
the film. To quote Kon directly on the process of creating said image:
“Sometimes I have to work
things out, and sometimes images just come to me fully formed. That’s how it
was with this one. I think its true power comes from Hirasawa’s music that this
was a wrapping for. They work together… [Describing the image itself] It’s the
same kimono that she [Chiyoko] wears in the main visual. She has elements of
dreams, like the moon, a crane, a key, and wood grain. It looks like a happy
sleep, curled up like a baby. I think this really captures Chiyoko and
‘Millennium Actress,’ all in one picture.”
To elaborate upon Kon’s reasoning for crafting the image, one could not
understand the film, its music, or even this cover outside of the realm
delineated by the illusion that is the piece of art itself. Simply put, none of
these things exist outside of the illusion in the same sense that they do
inside, thereby channeling the trompe l'oeil motif that pervades the film in
its entirety, with people registering the fact that something is one thing and another. All of these elements are made to work together as a
seamless whole, thereby leading to the music to be just as an essential part of
the film as the story and its themes, along with the image that Kon described. Outside
of the legendary illusion that is the film, these symbols and works are nothing
more than eye and ear candy that do not serve the greater narrative or the
central trompe l'oeil illusion that Kon so painstakingly crafted. With that,
this image can be dissected and analyzed just as acutely and effectively as the
music or film itself.
In
the case of the many symbols that Kon refers to, it is essential that one
understands them all in order for one to comprehend why Kon included them in
his film and the image that graced the cover of the film’s soundtrack. The
kimono is an important part of the image because it denotes and references
Chiyoko’s dual upbringing as both a “modern girl” of the prosperous and
forward-looking 1920s and early ‘30s that reads girl’s magazines and is swept
up in stories of imaginary “prince charming” as well as the “traditional girl”
that is the one that would wear a kimono, settle down in family life, and live
the life that her country needs her to live. These two ideas of how to live
one’s life constantly clash throughout her life, but they are in a harmonious
duality in this image because of what is on the kimono itself. The crane that
is seen on her kimono is a symbol of something that has both lived for a
thousand years, or the millennium in the film’s title, and is a representation
of good fortune and longevity, or the eternal youthful girl that Chiyoko is
pursuing; therefore, the kimono represents both the “modern” and “traditional”
ideals in the crane’s symbolism of eternal youth and the kimono’s symbol of
traditionalism and one’s culture. She is also holding her key, the most
important thing there is to her, in one of her hands with it on display but not
outside of her gaze and grip. The moon, as stated before, refers to endless and
cosmic chases in Japanese culture and storytelling, and it is fitting that
Chiyoko’s story both starts and stops, while most assuredly being shadowed and
lit by, on or near the moon, with it literally forming the part of the
background in this image while also metaphorically forming the backdrop to the
film itself. The wood grain that occupies the rest of the image is reflective,
according to Andrew Osmond in “Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist,” of the natural
mark of aging and growth, with Chiyoko growing older throughout the film while
still actively being on the chase she started in her youth. In the case of her
position of her body, Kon seems to reflect the fact that the young Chiyoko
herself reflects the crane on her kimono, and it actually seems as though this
may have been the idea of herself that Chiyoko was chasing after for a good
portion of her life. However, this line of reasoning can be taken one step
farther in linking the music to said image directly due to said image’s
resemblance of a lotus flower amongst some lily pads, with Chiyoko being the
blooming, bright-orange, young lotus, the moon being the lily pad, and the
expanse of the wood grain serving as a gentle, but aged, pond amongst the
forest. This seems to directly connect the image to ‘Rotation (LOTUS-2)” in
symbolism and theme, with this all being created possibly before Hirasawa began
his work on the music. What a turn of fate it was for this image to appear in
Kon’s mind already fully formed and realized! All in all, this image almost
perfectly reflects the music and the film it accompanies due its similar
symbolism and the fact that such an image’s significance cannot exist outside
the confines of the illusion created by the film; otherwise, it is simply a
collection of weird symbols set as the cover to a weird techno pop album from an
independent musician that has been around since the end of the 1970s.
With
all that being said, I think Kon was right when he said that the image that he
created for the cover of the film’s soundtrack captured the central character
and themes of the film all in one image because it really does reflect the very
same symbols and ideas that are present in both the music and “Millennium
Actress” itself. All three of these pieces are inseparable from one another,
with all three working diligently and effectively to create the overall
illusion that is the experience of the film. As acknowledged by Kon himself,
the illusion of “Millennium Actress” simply would not work without the
soundtrack that reflected and positively transformed the film as it one of the
key pieces that allows one to unlock the puzzle that is the film and reveal the
single, uninterrupted, and enduring continuity that is the fantastical, time
and space bending legend of the eternally running woman: Chiyoko Fujiwara.
~ Sources for Further Reading (&
Listening!) ~
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