PERFECT BLUE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Manga Entertainment/Rex Entertainment Director: Satoshi Kon Screenplay: Sadayuki Murai, novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi Animation: Hideki Hamazu
Ordinarily one wouldn't compare a film like "Perfect Blue" to the highly publicized final film of Stanley Kubrick, "Eyes Wide Shut," but since the Kubrick epitaph opened just three weeks before the U.S. debut of Satoshi Kon's Japanese anime feature, one can't help noting at least a marginal similarity. In "Eyes Wide Shut," Tom Cruise's character, Dr. Bill Harford, is made privy to a provocative fantasy of his wife (played by Nicole Kidman). Bored with a lull in her nine-year marriage, Alice Harford attempts to make her husband jealous by telling him of a near-affair she enjoyed with a naval officer during their marriage. Struck hard--as though he were living in pre-war Imperial Vienna rather than in contemporary Manhattan--the doctor becomes discombobulated, experiencing a virtual psychotic break. He wanders confused through some of New York's shadier streets, an alienated man who has lost his bearings, ending up in a mysterious Long Island mansion which is the site of a masked orgy to which he had not been invited. Kubrick invites the audience to determine whether Harford is actually experiencing his disaffection or whether he is merely an actor in a bad, bad dream.
"Perfect Blue" deals with a woman who goes through a similar ordeal. Like Dr. Harford, Mimi Kirigoe, is leading a solid life as an entertainer with the respect of both those near to her and of her followers. But a brief series of ill-fated encounters shatters her fragile spirit in much the way Harford is crushed by his wife's revelation, and she undergoes a period of deranged illusions which are so real to her that she can no longer tell the difference between delusion and actuality. As she regresses psychologically into violent episodes, she becomes convinced that she is no longer the victim of a madman's agenda but a murderer herself.
If the plot evokes for you Roman Polanski's "Repulsion"--that director's 1965 psychological shocker about the mental deterioration of a sexually repressed girl left alone in her sister's apartment for several days--you'd be on the money. There is one huge difference, however. "Perfect Blue" is wholly animated, a genre usually known in the U.S. for children's features by studios like Disney, Dreamworks, and Warner Bros., but in Japan a type of filming taken with deadly seriousness to display violent, shocking, psychologically compelling themes. Cognoscenti in the West may be familiar with Katsuhiro Otomo, currently the giant of this category, whose "Akira" adapted a Japanese comic-book sci-fi novel to the screen, depicting a group of motorcycle-riding, telekinetically-empowered teens living in a post-disaster Tokyo. Though "Akira" was produced ten years before "Perfect Blue," it shares the newer feature's technically spectacular excellence, but unlike "Perfect Blue," "Akira" sometimes is derailed by confusing storytelling.
Director Satoshi Kon brings Sadayuki Murai's screenplay (based on a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi) to vivid life, splashing spectacularly vivid colors to the screen as he weaves the story of Mima Kirigoe--who at the age of 21 is a pop idol whose Spice-Girls-style singing group, Cham, is well-liked by their fans but whose records simply cannot make the top-100 charts. Persuaded to switch careers against the advice of her manager, she becomes an actress, is given a bit part in a TV detective drama, and is conned into taking part in more graphic pieces involving nudity, rape, and modeling for Playboy-style magazines. While her two partners who now perform as a duet in Cham become successful, Mima loses the moral support of her former fans, forfeits integrity in her own mind, and begins to deteriorate psychologically. She can no longer distinguish her role in the thrillers from the reality of her own life, is certain that she is being watched (someone has even created a Mima Kirigoe home page on the Internet with information that only she could have known), and while she appears to be stalked by a genuine psycho who has brutally stabbed several of her associates to death, she toys with the idea that she is herself an illusion.
Since Satoshi Kon is given only eighty minutes to tell this frightening story, he dispenses with casual development of Mima's character--which is all to the good. By getting right to the point, "Perfect Blue" moves forward quickly, compelling the audience to pay close attention to detail, to vet each action for clues. "Perfect Blue" delights in keeping us in the audience as off guard and clueless as its principal character. Like Mina we never know when the stalker's murderous moves on her are real, a figment of her imagination, or a component in the thriller she is staging for her TV audience. We are reminded of David Cronenberg's recent fantasy, "eXistenZ," in which Allegra Geller is plunged into an acid trip, keeping the audience without an indicator to which scenes are part of Allegra's journey and which represent her comeback to her actual life before the start of the experiment.
The title comes from the TV movie that has employed Mima as a performer, "Double Bind," which the staff calls "the looking-glass of Perfect Blue." "Perfect Blue" works so well as a psychological thriller that at times the audience can't be blamed for forgetting that no real people are acting in the movie. While the picture has been shown at festivals around the world, the U.S. appearances are in the English-dubbed version, a technique that does detract in the least from its effectiveness. One can't help thinking that the novelist is taking a stab at celebrity with its fleeting fame and ersatz ecstasy, illuminating in his story just why so many of the rich and famous wind up alcoholics, drug addicts, and suicides. He may, in addition, be criticizing the public for seeking thrills in the tastelessly erotic rather than in the more established qualities of fine fiction.
"Perfect Blue" will probably wind up screened exclusively in art houses, but this would be a shame. Few Americans have experienced animation except in movies principally for the kiddies (however well-realized). "Perfect Blue" is a fine antidote for moviegoers who are bored by both the formulaic and the naturalistic. The movie is resonant with adult themes, superbly vivid animation, and the excitement that a good thriller even if handicapped with human actors can provide.
Not Rated Running Time: 80 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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