1 | The Revue of Souls

Scene l Movie, 1:31:20-1:43:26

Cast l Saijou Claudine v Tendou Maya

Revue Song l 美しき人 或いは其れは, “A Beautiful Person, or Perhaps It Is…”

The curtain opens upon an approach, a simple proposition. The darkly-clad devil asks the opulent regal stage person, “won’t you make a contract with me, O stage person?”. This devil wants the ultimate stage person’s soul in exchange for showing her an unmatched brilliance. The stage person claims to not know this devil’s name; but the devil knows all.

In the devil challenging the ultimate stage person to be shown previously unseen brilliance, Claudine is effectively challenging Maya’s throne; if she can show Maya brilliance the world has never seen, a brilliance even the best would be awed and swayed by, she will claim her soul.

Claudine, as a devil, represents “impurity” and temptation towards such, and such impurities are what she surfaces in Maya over the course of the Revue; emotion, greed, ego, pettiness, indulgence, tears, love, dare it be said, libido; indeed, it is no wonder so many including myself read such a strong homoeroticism between the two, and such tension is deeply woven into this tale of temptation and unearthing of passion. The devil’s impurity tempts the human and leads her to honesty, and in the end, Claudine does, indeed, win Maya’s soul; Maya’s love; by showing her unparalleled brilliance, breaking her sense of purity, tempting her to embrace her own mortality, unearthing her deepest feelings and passions; the only one capable of such a thing, Claudine knows herself to be, as the one Maya loves. Claudine not only wins Maya’s love, but once she has undeniably claimed her soul, she changes it, devil she is, from an empty vessel to something deep and invisible yet perceptible within her.

Claudine knows of Maya’s flaws, follies and feelings all too well, and she delights in the prospect of tearing her exterior down and seeing the overflowing warmth and heat that lies underneath; that smug, fanged grin on the devil’s face all throughout her opening offer is simply intoxicating. The orchestra’s strings simmer with anticipation, ominous whimpers of brass whispering in overhead, like the first razor-thin beams of glow of Maya’s true self teasing making themselves known by Claudine’s mere presence, the prospect of that unearthing so deeply exciting.

Maya signs and seals the contract in blood, and the bet is in place.

As their dance begins, the devil sings first, asking if the stage person summoned her. The stage person asks, why would she do such a thing? Spiritually, it is a dance of Claudine asking Maya, do you invite me into your life; and Maya still putting on an exterior; why would I invite such impurity? Why would I do such a thing as summon a devil? True, the stage person didn’t summon this devil on purpose; the devil did summon herself to her. But that devil did do so with reason. The stage person did attract her.

“That soul filled with passion shall illuminate the depths of hell”, they sing together; unparalleled brilliance of the soul will be seen, will burn so bright, and the devil will make such a thing happen. “Eternal boredom”, the devil chides her partner’s preceding lyric, “the greatest brilliance”. To be by oneself is lonely, a pitiful existence, and she sees that in Maya. “Santé!”, “Santé!”, the two chant to one another in French, a toast, a mutual show of respect and spiritedness, as this duel reaches its finale.

Darkly elegant do Maya and Claudine’s voices dance together, their singing and the orchestra in tandem rising, swinging, holding, commanding, the sound equally like two dancers in the heats of tension holding one another and pushing and pulling for dominance while never becoming out of step as it does two virtuosic opponents clashing blades; either way, like two exerting equal emotional and physical dominance over their movement; while both sounding and the stage appearing like such a scene taking place in the castle of hell, in the presence of a devil. It is truly operatic, something that feels timeless, biblical.

This painting could be interpreted several ways; it could be a reenactment of the devil rising up from her hell to approach the stage person, or it could be fortelling the scene to come, the devil being dominated by the stage person and brought to despair by her denial of herself. I like to see it a third way; perhaps, it is the devil finding herself enraptured by the stage person’s beauty, brought to her very knees, the shining soul which the devil sees within her, and that which inspired the devil to approach her, to unearth that which made the devil fall for her. Perhaps this is the moment which motivated the devil to come here; it may, indeed, be a portrait of a devil in the throes of love.

Maya self-assuredly mocks Claudine’s efforts, seeing Claudine’s chasing after her an amusing farce; but to Claudine, this is real, visceral. She isn’t “playing” Maya’s rival; she is Maya’s rival. This is not a role for the stage; this is who Claudine is, doing battle with Maya is her real passion, she is fierce about it, listen to her voice, look into her eyes.

Maya feigns aboveness, feigns being a perfect force capable of overcoming and resisting her devil. Maya boasts about giving her soul to the stage fully, being an empty, hollow vessel through which she can channel the stage’s will with purity. It must be given to Maya; as ever, her performance is commanding, absolutely flawless. And yet, so subtly yet tangibly felt beneath it all, it is a scary and sad sight, a human casting away her humanity, and yet, Maya plays that very role with utmost gravitas, makes that very fact an arresting performance. It is proof of her talent, proof of her as the ultimate stage person.

But such was not the terms of the contract. Ascetic rejection of feeling, enclosure from the earthly and vulnerable and humane, is not what unlocks brilliance, is not perfection.

It is here that the Revue transcends beyond the physical space of this stage; first, their beings become silhouettes, their forms seeming to transcend their bodies, as the orchestra intensifies to a boil; it then seamlessly lilts into an elegant waltz, into a living painting of their clash manifesting through a wide prism of performances, a multitude of roles upon a multitude of stages from all across history. Maya, as she boasts, can perform any role, be anything the stage asks of her, a hollow vessel willing to lend itself to everything, infinite. But note how across all those portraits, Claudine was right there alongside her. The rondo of rivals is eternal, after all; their dance, the dance of the twin flames, is one that transcends time. It is they, not she, who is eternally adaptable and infinitely possible.

Claudine’s eyes water at Maya’s proclamation, her voice pained; a lovestruck devil who sought the soul of her contractor, for she found it beautiful. To see this soul rendered empty, its owner casting away its fullness, turning it to a hollow grey vessel, is a heartbreak even Lucifer herself can be driven to despair and fear by. And lost in her heartbreak is the devil defeated, the goddess of the stage felling her imperfection.

But that moment is all for the performance, a moment of star acting on Claudine’s part. In truth, a devil doesn’t accept defeat so easily. Claudine has made it clear what she wants. She wants Maya’s soul; devil she is, she’ll break the rules and bend reality to get it.

So Claudine speaks the truth; Maya’s attitude towards the stage, towards her position as the best, is not one of purity, as she makes it out to be; rather, it is one borne of deeply human vice, greedy, competitive, egotistical.

Claudine takes Maya’s monologue and perverts it, doing away with all the lofty cosmic imagery, mocking the bloodless, fleshless platitude, in its place spitting fire, violent, determined. Claudine doesn’t want perfection. She doesn’t want proficiency. She wants love. She wants feeling. She wants honesty. She wants Maya to perform like she fucking means it.

Claudine steals Maya’s climactic lyric from the Revue of Pride as she destroys Maya’s precious vessel, destroys and takes away that which Maya has proclaimed to be her very soul, for right now, she has surpassed Maya. This very performance of hers, messy, angry, deceitful, ferocious, flawed, human, honest, has definitively surpassed Maya’s, and as such, she, not Maya, now stands as the brightest star in the sky.

Maya’s voice heaves deeply with barely-concealed tears and rage. The arrogance. The audacity of that devil, that vexing Claudine.

Maya finally drops the act and comes forth as herself; just as Claudine always wanted. It is in her monologue, that you are reminded in sharp relief why Maya is the greatest; the electricity of her presence, the booming, deafening command of her voice, the sheer, speechless confidence and dominance in her movements along that reprise of her signature three-note sting from the Revue of Pride. She is no empty vessel. It is just as Claudine laid bare; the most libidinal, selfish parts of her humanity, her thirst and hunger for the top, desire for greatness, scream from her.

We get a moment to breathe, the two staring one another down in silence, wind howling across the stadium and through their hair and cloaks, the anticipation in only a couple of seconds simmering to a boil. The only thing Claudine can see is Maya, and the only thing Maya can see is Claudine. Nothing else, no one else, matters.

For as many, many words about these performances as I’ve spilled up to this point, they come close to failing to describe the magnitude of Claudine and Maya’s ultimate clash. The climax of this Revue is my favorite fight in any story. Opulent yet fervorous, romantic beyond compare, pure beauty and pure hype, the surrounding orchestra of strings dancing and striking like lightning yet overwhelmingly portentous and grand, a glimpse into the human soul itself, the soul of rivalry, friction, the interplay between humans itself. That’s not even to mention the animation and cinematography, physical, precarious, meticulously detailed as it is explosively fast, heart-pounding, stomach-turning, chill-inducing. It’s… fire, it’s the soul itself, it’s perfection, true perfection.

One can only sit in awe, at the absolute best of their craft in this epic clash, while still feeling the very real, very human emotions and frictions between them. Emotional resonance. That is what the best can bring out like nothing else, the secret spice, the true spark.

Maya’s face contorts, her voice breaks; ugly she calls it, emotion-drenched she insults it as, and yet, and yet, isn’t what Claudine has sparked, unearthed in her, so invigorating? And that smug, fierce smile on Claudine’s face in return, as she rouses more, holy hell. This is what Claudine wants to see, likes to see, and she has no pretension of hiding it.

Finally, as Maya admits to Claudine having brought her deepest feelings out, does she show a real, alive smile.

“Pathetic clowns”, Maya admonishes herself and Claudine as, fools who can’t help but give in to their baser natures, to fight and compete, to egotize and boast, to love and lose themselves. “No,” Claudine immediately rebukes, “rivals!” Claudine doesn’t deny that such creatures are, indeed, what they are; she only disagrees that this is a pathetic state. This is something to be embraced, something to be cherished. Rivalry is something that has been all throughout history and will always be. It is humanity itself.

Here, at the pinnacle of everything, Claudine leads Maya along, coaxing her deepest truths out through unflinching, aggressive honesty. Gradually, as their swords cross again and again, shouting everything that exists at and burns from the bottom of their hearts back and forth, Maya gets caught up in it all, her hot emotions and love boil over from the depths of her heart across her whole body and being, as gradually, her admonishments turn into plain truths turn into confessions, and before she knows it, she’s in perfect sync with Claudine, saying everything she’s been wanting to hear this whole time.

”For heroes there are trials, for saints there are temptations, for me, there is a devil.”

So it was said. In the beginning, for Maya to achieve her destiny, to become the ultimate stage person, she need only slay her devil, that troublesome Claudine and her troublesome earthliness; and in tandem with that, cast away her ugly emotions and passions, overcome temptation, overcome her humanity, become singular and perfect, to triumph and claim her destiny.

Here, in the end, in the throes of passion, that quote is rewritten into something mutual and perpetual; Maya’s ultimate challenge is not overcoming Claudine. Claudine and Maya’s ultimate challenge is overcoming one another. Every blow they strike against one another is a triumph. Every moment they hone their crafts, sharpen their swords, against one another is them claiming their destiny.

”For heroes there are trials, for saints there are temptations, for me, there is you.”

No longer could Maya deny it. That raw truth, that burns within her heart more brightly than any other truth may ever burn anywhere else.

She is beautiful.

The enormity of this moment, of the perfect stage person admitting not only defeat, but the weakness, vulnerability, tender humanity of love, unlocks a brilliance so great as to ignite a great flame, enrapturing the stage and destroying all. The orchestra pounds at the chest, it is tear-inducingly mortal and all-engulfing and beautiful.

As intense and blood-igniting as this fight was, every second of it was so humane, so physically and spiritually invigorating and uplifting. Because it was all an act of love. This is why Claudine wins; her way of seeing what it is to perform, to reach for true greatness, to be a rival, is a more robust and humane way of it than Maya boasted as, and is ultimately what Maya needs to hear.

In the end, Maya is… smiling. Maya can only be grateful to Claudine; for reminding her that she isn’t an empty vessel. Claudine’s beauty, the fire she ignites within Maya to be the best, all something so human to be reminded of. She’s accepted the fullness of feeling she has in her pride in her craft, she’s accepted Claudine, the fire Claudine ignites within her, into her heart, and the glimmer that came about through her on that stage felt more colorful, alive, and fulfilling than anything she had ever experienced before in her life as a result. She’s finally satisfied, at least in that respect. As such, she can finally face whatever lays ahead.

It was always a paradox. Maya always said there was room for only one at the top, and yet, Maya always said she belonged at the top because there was someone worth fighting for it from. Success alone is not the end. Greatness is not a fixed state. You only improve and evolve further and further, and that’s only possible if you have others to improve off of, even better someone who might improve off of you on turn, fueling a brilliant cycle, and best of all, if that someone is someone you love.

To put the singularity of what Claudine and Maya have with one another in the words of my favorite anime discusser online, one of my greatest motivations to continue writing artistically about this medium, in his own piece on rivalry and another of anime’s greatest; the truest rivalry is borne of exclusivity and mutuality. Nobody else makes them feel this way.

They resolve to do this again. Because the rondo of rivals doesn’t end. Flame fueled by flame will never truly go out. It’s that push and pull that drives you and your adversary ever higher in a spiral. That, is the twin flames that fall together while burning. That, is love. That, is life.

The best can’t be achieved alone.

What is Revue Starlight ultimately about? Well, it’s about a lot of things, and a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But if it’s about one thing to me, it’s about the unparalleled, romantic beauty of friendships forged in the fires of passion, driven artistic passion. And it is in equal measure about the strife and sadness of the time when such friendships must come to an end, and the unmatched splendor of the times when such friendships will truly last a lifetime.

Revue Starlight is the story of driven, artistic women who don’t know how else to be other than to scream the innermost passions and desires for transcendence that burn in their hearts and guts by way of the arts; obviously and most visibly dancing, singing, performance, but respect and reverence are also shown other less-immediately-visible aspects like stage production and script writing; and the varying prism of social relationships that emerge between them and others who are much the same. It is about the unmatched splendor of bonds formed between driven, artistic, passionate, creative people, coloring one another’s craft and life at once, while also facing all the challenges that arise in an artistic social space as such; partnership, reaching, narcissism, attachment, jealousy, nostalgia, imposter syndrome, ego, rivalry. It is a holistic prismatic explosion of the arts and the social colliding, and it captures in equal measure the unparalleled beauty and the unique struggles and challenges therein.

The movie is about goodbyes between those people; it’s basically a long succession of goodbyes, symbolically rendered and with varying degrees of amicability. And the only goodbye worthy of the two brightest stars in the whole sky is a blaze which burns the whole stage down; and, in both a spiritual and very literal sense, that’s exactly what we, and more importantly they, got, in Revue Starlight’s magnum opus.

The only way these two could ever part is by putting on the greatest performance ever.

And let it be forever known that they succeeded.

Thanks for reading—

Act IV, Scene II—