Alfred Hitchcock, Nicolas Roeg, David Lynch, Brian de Palma, Roman Polanski, or Alex Proyas could have easily been responsible for Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon’s very learn’d debut film. In a world where the division between reality and fantasy are blurred both externally and internally, the young filmmaker fashions a tension unlike any in recent memory as he explores the psychology of lionization from both fan and icon alike while positing a succinct criticism of media-led hero worship in the process.
Mima’s agency decides that, in lieu of her rising career as lead of a trio of teen divas called CHAM, she should divert the public eye by becoming an actress. Amid her harsh roles playing a rape victim and being coerced into posing nude, she is stalked by an obsessive fan who, like her subconscious, is haunted by the loss her of previous innocence as those around her begin to die miserable deaths.
Kon is a master in creating a taunt psychological thriller that is almost on par with the great genre works which precede Perfect Blue. He ingeniously convolutes his tale of ambiguity by issuing his audience an unreliable narrator twice over (or thrice, depending on your reading) as he refuses to address whether the doppelganger which periodically manifests itself to Mima is a dream, a ramification of her psychosis goaded by the regret of losing her innocence and more agreeable past, or if she is truly being stalked. To add epistemological insult to injury, Mima’s stalker may be a ghost of her former self or, just as readily, it could be the clever mechanizations of a crazed fan whom we witness alongside her throughout most of the feature. Without going to aesthetic access with his exploratory premise, Kon nonetheless trumps the tension of the “Who’s” and “What’s” of his story by humoring the notion that perhaps Mima is the homicidal maniac at large.
Fascinatingly, yet fittingly–with the aide of Kon’s sporadic scene cuts devoid of clear indicators–Perfect Blue lapses into a postmodern obfuscation wherein we are unsure of whether we are in the realm of reality or fiction as the first film which Mima has a role, “Double Bind” (a double entendre in itself), houses a script which uncannily mirrors what is occurring in Mima’s life. What’s more, form follows function as Kon’s anime festival writ large is merged with real background shots, thus complimenting his motif of hazy uncertainty.
However, Kon’s masterstroke is not his execution, but rather his overriding premise. The theme of postmodern ambiguity parallels and simultaneously comments upon the nature of lionization, especially of media icons as, appropriately–bemoaning her own shift in careers as she watches the second wave of CHAM rise above the success of its previous incarnation–Mima’s mental and emotional complexities become symptomatic of her (as well as her fans’) veneration of her former self. It is with this scathingly critical commentary–not solely upon fandom, the rampant obesity which is (no pun intended) beginning to expand and plague the Eastern world, or air headed members of bubble gum pop music–but rather its inclusion of the idol’s own bloated perception of self, making Perfect Blue almost perfect.
The plausibility, thankfully not with the suspenseful storyline, but with a few of the minor events contained within, threaten to break the twines of the rope by which our suspension of disbelief hangs. During the proceedings, a mail bomb addressed to Mima ignites, maiming a member of the femme fatale’s PR team (hence issuing motive to her lamenting fan as well as herself for having steered Mima into her newfound career) though, at the singer-cum-actress’s behest, a police investigation is denied. Furthermore, though deaths linked by the figure of Mima alone continue unabated, the main character’s agency does nothing upon the discovery of a website devoted to the icon though it includes, in detail, minute-by-minute minutia which only a dangerous stalker could report.
Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue conveys an essence which makes it seem as if it is threatening to become a live-action feature at any moment. Its edge-of-your-seat suspense and various thematic exacerbations keep one intrigued and involved throughout as few other thrillers can (the Wachowski brother’s Bound comes to mind). Luckily, though the initial intent was to shoot the feature live before the Kobe earthquake thwarted funds, causing the production company to resort to an anime format, Darren Aronofsky procured the American rights to the work and, if his homage to the near masterpiece in Requiem for a Dream is any indication, we might well see another able-handed filmmaker take us one step closer to nerve-wracking (un)reality.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
