Movies - Perfect Blue

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	Movies - Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue is a feature-length anime film, directed by Satoshi Kon (loosely based on the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi). The film is a psychological thriller about Mima Kirigoe who is a member of a Japanese pop idol group called "Cham!" who decides to become an actress. Some fans aren't happy about her career change with one fan in particular who is rather obsessed and very disturbed. As she starts her new career reality and fantasy blur and Mima becomes increasingly out of control of the world around her.

Tagline: excuse me...who are you? (US release)

Plot

A pop star Mima Kirigoe from a j-pop group called "CHAM!", decides to change her career to that of an Actress. She decides to participate in a direct to video drama series called "Double Bind". Some of her fans are disturbed over her change, in particular a guy who is referred to as "Me-Mania". Shortly after making the change, she receives a fax from a mysterious source calling her a traitor.

Mima finds a website called "Mima's room" that has public diary entries which seem to be written by her discussing her life in explicit detail. She confides in her friend/manager Rumi about the site who advises her to ignore the creepy similarities the entries have to her life.

Meanwhile on the series Mima wants to get a bigger role. The producers decide to offer her a part, as long as she participates in a simulated rape scene. The scene traumatizes her and she increasingly becomes unable to separate reality from fantasy. She increasingly becomes part of a seedy world of show business while the band she left is becoming increasingly successful.

Later people involved with the drama series who forced her to do work she didn't like, are suddenly murdered. She finds evidence makes it seems like she's the suspect, but like the rest of the film it is unsure whether she did it or not.

It turns out that the diarist herself is delusional as she believes herself to be Mima and has made a disillusioned psycho-fan believe that she is the real Mima and the girl in the show is an imposter. The fan then proceeds to commit the murders and come after Mimarin. Mima kills him and runs to her only support left alive Rumi, only to find out that the person she trusted the most is the delusional diarist. She is chased and wounded but manages to seriously wound Rumi to the point of incapacitation. They both live, Rumi is sent to a mental institution where she lives in constant delusion, and Mima becomes a famous actress.

Background

Originally the film was supposed to be a live action direct to video series, but after the Kobe earthquake it was changed into an OVA. The reason for this change was that the earthquake damaged the production studio which made the budget too low to be produced in live action. During production it was changed from an OVA to a theatrically released film. Katsuhiro Otomo was credited as "Special Supervisor" as a means to better sell the film abroad and as a result film was screened in many film festivals around the world. While touring the world it received a fair amount of acclaim, jumpstarting Kon's career as a filmmaker.

A live action film was later made that is much closer to the novel called Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete (2002) and was directed by Toshiki Sato. Kon and Murai didn't think that the original novel would make a good film and asked if they could change the contents. This change was approved so long as they kept a few of the original concepts from the novel.

The US remake rights, purchased for $59,000, are owned by Darren Aronofsky who referenced a scene from Perfect Blue shot by shot, within a similar thematic context in Requiem for a Dream
(2000). The scene is where Mima/Marion is curled up naked in a bathtub and both characters yell underwater. Thematically the two scenes are similar because both characters in the scenes are mentally distressed over being the subject of sexual exploitation in both films.

Like much of Kon's later work, the film deals with the blurring between fantasy and reality in contemporary Japan. Also like his later work Paranoia Agent
(2004) (TV), it portrays a negative viewpoint of popular culture. Furthermore, it falls into an unusual genre for an animated film, dealing with serious psychological issues as opposed to fantasy.

Reception

The film was critically well received in the festival circuit, winning awards at the 1997 FantAsia Film Festival in Montréal, and Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal.

Critical response in the United States upon its theatrical release was mixed, with many critics being baffled at why it was done as an animated film and many others associating the film with common anime stereotypes of gratuitous sex and violence.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Perfect Blue ]

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