[filmcritic.com presents a review from guest writer Athan Bezaitis. You can find the review with full credits at http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/14c211de96509278882567fe0007a920?OpenDocument
PERFECT BLUE
A film Review by Athan Bezaitis Copyright Athan Bezaitis 1999
If it were somehow easier to translate Japanese into English without losing so much essential meaning and depth, anime style films would surely be more entertaining and maybe even accepted by mainstream American audiences. This unique style of animation is fun to watch, especially when it's in the context of a sadistic story such as PERFECT BLUE. The exaggerated features and expressions along with the mess of blood and gore seem perfectly suited for the larger-than-life anime style. Unfortunately, PERFECT BLUE is nothing more than visually exhilarating, and the reason is that too much is lost in the dubbing from its original format.
Directed by Satoshi Kon, PERFECT BLUE is the story of 21-year-old pop star Mima Kirigoe, who is the lead singer in the all-girl band Cham. Heeding advice from her agent to get out of the business before her fame runs out, she decides to become an actress. Like many of the instant pop celebrities before her, Mima finds it hard to be taken seriously and is forced to change her image in order to be cast in larger roles. In her first big feature she plays a stripper who is raped and sets off on a wild killing spree. A disturbed fan, who also runs her Website, refuses to accept that his favorite pop star is changing her persona and is obsessed with keeping Mima the innocent young starlet that he has fallen in love with. After several of the people associated with casting her in smutty roles are murdered, Mima becomes plagued with disturbing hallucinations and is stalked by the deranged Webmaster who somehow knows too many details of her personal life. Mima eventually can no longer discern fantasy from reality and becomes paralyzed by her inability to associate the events around her with increasingly disturbing visions.
The film is inundated with frighteningly sordid imagery. I would definitely categorize it as a horror film complete with vicious stabbings, a naive female victim being stalked and hunted, and a staged rape scene that is downright chilling. Don't be fooled into taking your kids to see this one just because they like Power Rangers. This one will be rated R and deservedly so.
The main problem is that too much of the dialogue seems canned and sappy. The translation makes Mima seem almost dumb as she is confronted with a chain of events that she does nothing to cope with. She comes off as nothing more than a ditsy child even as those close to her are dying and she seems to be losing her mind. If you're in the mood for something dark and twisted this is the right film for you. Otherwise spare yourself the trouble of having to sit through what is a crude film that will be hard for most audiences to swallow.
** Two Stars Starring: N/A Producer: Hiroaki Inoue, Masao Maryama Director: Satoshi Kon -- Christopher Null - cnull@mindspring.com - http://www.filmcritic.com Author - Network Administrator's Reference, 1999 - ISBN 0-07-882588-1 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0078825881/filmcriticcom
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