PERFECT BLUE Japan, 1997 Directed by Satoshi Kon Screenplay by Sadayuki Murai from novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi Reviewed by Kent Johnson
This is an animated murder mystery suspense thriller from Japan about an idol singer trying to become a serious actress. The last third is so wonderfully surreal that it seems an inconclusive "which world is real?" ending is inevitable (but it isn't). PERFECT BLUE is excellently written and executed and except for one thing, would be moody, suspenseful and shocking -- all the virtues of a good mystery film combined with the beauty and poetry of an animated film.
The fact that PERFECT BLUE is *opening* at the dinky Opera Plaza theatre (usually reserved for second-run art films) tells you how marginal this release is, so it's great that it made it into the theatres at all. Unfortunately, instead of being subtitled, the film has been dubbed in English and although it's not that bad for an English dubbing effort, at every turn the dubbing undermines the effectiveness of the film. The voices don't sound right, the dialogue is awkward because it was rewritten to match the animated mouth movements and Japanese concepts are slaughtered in the Americanized dialog.
It's disturbing to watch a movie which you constantly have to mentally filter ("Well, would have been a good scene if it was subtitled...), especially since Japanese voice-acting is generally really good and adds a lot to the animated films. I don't feel like I'll have really seen the film until I see a subtitled version.
Evaluation: Dubbed: Worth Seeing
Subtitled: Highly Recommended
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Kent Johnson San Francisco kjohnson@slip.net
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