Perfect Blue

"Perfect Blue" is a very, very dark anime...so don't let your kids watch it thinking it's like "Pokemon" or "Inuyasha"! It's also a confusing mind-bending sort of film...one that certainly is unique.

When the anime begins, Mima is in an up and coming pre-packaged Japanese girl bands. However, her agent convinces her to leave this life and pursue a career in films. But this way to success is very dark and soul-crushing and soon they have her in a film featuring a rape, lots of violence and nudity. All the while, Mima struggles with herself. She hates what she's doing but in the world of female pop stars and starlets, she feels a sense of obligation and won't publicly question the folks looking after her career. Now at this point, the film gets weird...really, really weird. Mima seems to be losing her mind and some murders occur...and soon the viewer is confused and they might be seeing the world through the eyes of a lunatic...or a killer! What's it all mean? See the film and TRY to unravel it all...but don't be surprised if you still are questioning what it all means.

This is a very clever film and its plot is deep and very strange...and I liked that. But be forewarned...the film shows some very sexually explicit and violent scenes...even by Japanese standards (the film features pubic hair...something very taboo in Japanese culture). Well done and worth seeing...but just don't let the kids see it or anyone who have been sexually abused as a few of the scenes just might be too intense.

'Perfect Blue (1997)' is genuinely disturbing, especially when it comes to its depictions of sexual violence. It features one of the most upsetting rape scenes I've seen (not that rape scenes are ever anything other than upsetting), even though the scene in question is framed as a consensual simulation, part of a television show that our protagonist, Mima, is filming. The flick also makes a nude photo shoot seem incredibly leery and violating, despite the fact that the shoot is, at least on the surface, entirely consensual. I say "at least on the surface" because the picture never makes it clear whether or not it is Mima's actual desire to do the things she is doing; as a fellow reviewer put it, she consents to these things simply because she doesn't know how not to. Although she constantly says that she chose to become an actress and, in saying so, implies that the horrors she faces are simply unavoidable consequences of that decision (which they should never be), she is never actually depicted as having chosen to be an actress at all; it's her manager who consistently reinforces the idea, with his reasoning seemingly being entirely based on the proposed profits of his decision. We don't know if she herself actually wants to do what she's doing or whether she has just internalised the wishes of others, in a similar fashion to how she internalises the public's hypocritical perception of her to the point that her true self is seemingly lost. In every instance in which Mima consents to being put in a sexualised, typically exploitative situation, she also subsequently expresses deep regret and experiences some form of trauma. Her life is entirely controlled by the men around her, from her all-male fans who leer at her while she's on stage and practically peer through her clothing yet chastise her when she actually shows some skin and expresses her sexuality to her manager who constantly excuses the exploitative situations he puts her in and even pushes for further scenarios in an effort to cement her position as an actress (a position which, again, he is entirely responsible for) to the stalker who watches her every move and impersonates her online in an effort to maintain the squeaky clean image he so desperately desires her to have. Everyone seeks to control her and she herself internalises this control as her own wants and needs. She confuses her true self with the self that other people want her to be, whether that's the innocent pop star or the grown-up actress. Her true self is arguably never seen on screen; if it is, it's whenever she is on her own, away from the public eye, and is able to reflect on her existence. Even the safety of her apartment soon becomes derailed, though. As her realities start to bleed into one another, so do the different elements of the film itself. It blurs the line between reality and the eerily true-to-life television show Mima is working on, between reality and the increasingly disturbing waking nightmares Mima is experiencing, even between reality and reality itself (it often presents us with situations that must be real to an extent, yet it does so in a deliberately confusing and, even, misleading way). The entire movie represents the crisis of personality at the heart of its tale. It brilliantly folds its conflict into its very fabric, trapping us within an uncomfortable and increasingly erratic headspace. You feel as unsteady and as icky as the protagonist, victimised by the plot's horrors and shaken by its mind-bending concepts. It's purposefully ambiguous, purposefully unsettling, as much a horror film as any other to use that label. Somehow, it's even scary in its most realistic moments; it doesn't need to make you question reality to make your skin crawl. I feel as though I'm not explaining it as well as I could be, because there's so much to say and it's so difficult to concisely do so (I'm also aware that I want to avoid major spoilers). This is a movie that practically demands analysis. Despite being animated, it's as real and mature as any film ever has been. It will seriously get under your skin. It certainly got under mine, and it's showing no signs of getting out any time soon. It's one of the few films I can recall that genuinely disturbed me. 8/10.

Mima Kirigoes is part of a young idol group Cham, but she decides to move on and kick-start a career as an actress with some help by her pressuring agent. To change her image, she accepts some confronting roles, which eventuates into her downward spiral between realities and virtual. She discovers an Internet site that knows her every move and those responsible for growing success in the acting industry end up brutally killed.

Well, what can I say? Simply, I forgot that I originally saw this wonderfully, stunning anime picture before. I don't know how it left my mind, because it's very chilling and effective across the board. Based on Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel, "Perfect Blue" is an intoxicatedly, shocking psychological thriller that does resemble some works of Lynch, Polanski, De Palma and rightly so, Hitchcock. Even a giallo imprint shines heavily within the mixture.

The mature plot boldly plays it cards at a mild pace and eventually forms a structure like a rubrics cube. I wouldn't go out of my way to call it complicated, but there's stylish imagination and cerebral details that gladly doesn't fall into a convoluted mess. The characters' persona's are well defined and emotionally attachable. It can turn into an uncomfortable ride, where dazzling images of fact and fiction skews into one. You can't help but get those disorientating spells that the distraught Mima succumbs to on her journey to find her feet as an mature entertainer. Where her dreams become her anxiety, as she's too sensitive to how she's being perceived then being her true self. Her clean-cut image becomes tainted and a growing obsession towards her takes its tole on her fractured and vulnerable mind.

Paranoia, delusions and a dreamlike air are cooked up with an array of tension and creepy visuals. The animation isn't a visual goldmine, but its showered with powerfully focused and flashed up images that manage to keep the viewer at bay. The pressure building dialogues are quite biting, and the revealing twist catches you off guard because of the superb use of artificial dreams with its fast editing and exhilaratingly moody soundtrack.

You don't have to be a fan of animation to enjoy this piece. So, if you come across it, give it a chance.

I am a fan of anime and of animation, and I was very taken with Perfect Blue. I would have liked it to have lasted longer perhaps, that way more care could have gone into the ending which felt rather weak and rushed. But as a debut of a talented and interesting director, it is a fine anime not just of its genre but overall too.

The animation is very good, while the backgrounds flow well and are wonderfully ethereal, the colours are well shaded and the characters look great without being too generic, it is the clever visual flourishes that really elevate. Another strong asset is the story, it is well paced but also in its tone it is wonderfully surrealistic and its ideas are interestingly presented.

The music is fine too with some moments of beauty and some of it haunted me as well. The dialogue convinces and the pace is well-judged. All the characters are likable and interesting too, and the voice work is stellar. Overall, a fine film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Roger Corman is quoted as considering this a cross between Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, whilst others have referenced Argento and Lynch. Whilst I'm not particularly keen on any of these comparisons, it is certainly true to say that this film, even though it is animated, is much closer to live action than what we normally consider animation. There are times when you forget you are watching animation, the urban shots of Tokyo are mesmerising, and I have certainly never seen so much blood in an animated film. I was going to say violence but I guess there is plenty of that in a Tom and Jerry short. This, of course, is much harder edged and although it begins in pink, girlie, teen idol territory it is not there for long and there are delirious sequences towards the end when it will not only be the person on screen who is having an identity crisis!