Satoshi Kon’s first feature is a chilling psychological character study in adult anime form.
Dir. Satoshi Kon
1997 | Japan | Animation/Mystery/Horror | 81 mins | 1.85:1 | Japanese
R21 (passed clean) for animated sequences of violence and nudity, and for brief language
Cast: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji
Plot: A retired pop singer turned actress’ sense of reality is shaken when she is stalked by an obsessed fan and seemingly a ghost of her past.
Awards: Official Selection (Berlin)
Source: GKIDS
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Mature/Slightly Disturbing
Narrative Style: Complex
Pace: Tight
Audience Type: Slightly Arthouse
Viewed: The Projector
Spoilers: No
Satoshi Kon passed away way too early, leaving behind only four feature films. Perfect Blue was his very first, and from the get-go, the Paprika (2006) director already showed evidence of becoming a filmmaker with the requisite skill to tackle heavy and complicated themes.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, albeit loosely, Perfect Blue is both a chilling psychological character study of a woman’s mysterious mental affliction, as well as a time capsule of the late ‘90s, when the Internet was so primitive that Netscape Navigator was its most popular browser.
Kon’s work is also a harbinger of the rampant East Asian celebrity culture that continues till this day, particularly the perils of being a famous person in a not-so-private world.
“Excuse me… who are you? Excuse me… who are you?”
As such, it is a remarkably prescient film seen from today’s point-of-view, but I’m sure it was equally a stunning breakthrough in anime filmmaking when it was first released.
Kon’s filmmaking style goes for the jugular—its frenetic editing includes intensified use of match cuts, while the intercutting between the lead protagonist’s mental states and her fallible sense of reality build up to a tense climax where the film becomes fractured and fragmented.
It’s almost like experiencing a broken mirror, where each shard of glass not just reflects a part of one’s unsound mind, but brutally stabs into the subconscious. Perfect Blue continues to be a landmark in adult anime, and at only 80 minutes long, it tackles so many themes in so little time.
Grade: A
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 
[…] Perfect Blue (1997) […]
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YES! Perfect Blue is one of the best animated debuts from a director. The atmosphere is intense and the surreal elements really make this movie work. Once again, you also reviewed something I reviewed. Haha!
Did you know Darren Aronovsky bought the rights to this movie to recreate the “girl screaming in a bathtub” scene for Requiem For a Dream? That and he based Black Swan on Perfect Blue, but traded J-pop stars with ballerinas?
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Lol, yep a lot of hate comments towards Aronofsky because of that, which I feel is terribly unfair because other filmmakers have been inspired by what had come before too. I love BLACK SWAN, and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is still his finest film!
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I’m not an Aronovsky fan, but he didn’t deserve the hate for Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan from Satoshi Kon fans. At least he bought the rights to Perfect Blue which means he gave credit anyway. I don’t like it when people use the term rip-off or plagiarism so flippantly. I wonder how many of those same people who bash Aronovsky for those films would do the same for Inception (which DID steal from a different Kon film), The Hunger Games for stealing from Battle Royale, and especially for The Lion King for rampantly plagiarizing from Kimba the White Lion and that’s not even getting into the music theft or cultural appropriation!
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[…] made a film not worth seeing. Despite living a short life, he left behind four superb features—Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Paprika (2006), and of course, this […]
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[…] elusive, be it the conflation of dreams, nightmares, ambition and fears as in the case of Perfect Blue (1997) and Paprika (2006), or unlikely friends attempting to locate the parents of a newborn baby […]
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