Perfect Blue

Despite my admiration for 1997's PERFECT BLUE, I still do not consider myself an anime buff.  The reasons have been documented here before so I'll spare you the rant.  I also won't bore you again with my seeming inability to be 100% satisfied with animation that has been produced in the last few decades. To wit, I've gone back and re-watched others and had similar results.  I can't even draw, so my ability to produce something better - or to my satisfaction - is not possible.  Yet, in my mind's eye I can create moving artwork that might stun and amaze, if I only I could translate it.

That out of the way, let's discuss director Satoshi Kon's striking, often disturbing film, one that can easily be seen as a live feature.  As I absorbed its psychosis and dream logic, I thought on the works of Brian De Palma and David Lynch.  Someone even mentioned Michael Haneke.  PERFECT BLUE, which was also quite influential on Darren Aronofsky, plays like a lurid thriller and an insightful treatise on the cult of celebrity.  It is also quite significant in its examination of identity, especially in the online age.

As this film was made in the late '90s, its characters use Netscape.  The ability to disappear into a cyber persona, or to assume one based on a real person (or pretending to be that person), is one of the intriguing story threads.  Mima has just retired from a pop music trio called "CHAM!", hoping to become a television actress.  The public is slow to accept, prompting some to even send letter bombs.  A mysterious stalker emerges, one who has created a website which purports to be created by Mima herself, filled with personal anecdotes which are accurate.  How can this be?

Mimi, whose acting career slowly progresses but does involve her having to film a horrific rape scene, begins losing her sanity, even seeing an evil twin of sorts.  Members of the crew of her TV show are gruesomely murdered.  And Mimi finds bloody clothes in her closet. Have there been blackouts? Can she trust her own memories?

PERFECT BLUE's screenplay, penned by Sadayuki Murai, is its strongest asset.  Layered with rabbit holes of considerations of mental health and identity, it straddles a line between B-movie exploitation and A-movie character study, all realized in often beautiful animation.   The backdrops are quite distracting.  But the foregrounds are rich in color and composition. The graphic art is undeniably commanding, and Kon's use of the camera makes it feel very cinematic.   But those anime faces - the eyes and chins are just bothersome to me for some reason.