Perfect Blue
Howard Tom
Some random thoughts on the screening:
Idol thoughts are the devil's playground
never trust anyone over 25
there's a long uncertain road between knowing what you want to be and
being who you want to be
who do you see when you look in the mirror?
who are you?
who are you?
who are you?
The event
The Madhouse/Oniro production of "Perfect Blue" had its world
premiere screening at the Imperial Cinema in Montreal on July 5, 1997
as part of the "Fant-Asia '97" film festival. Present at the premiere
was Associate Producer Hitomi Nakagaki, who addressed the audience in
English. In her remarks she presented the film as an attempt to try
something new in anime, an exploration into genres previously
untouched by the form. For the record, this film ran about 81.4
minutes without an opening logo. The film is presented at about a
1.66:1 aspect ratio with a monophonic soundtrack. A second screening
was hastily scheduled that same evening, to handle the extremely high
demand for tickets for this film.
The plot setup (some spoilers)
Mima Kirigoe is a young singer in "Cham", an idol trio that
has yet to make more than a minor impact on the music scene. Under the
advice of one (but not both) of her managers, she decides to quit the
group and pursue an acting career. The final appearance of the group
is a rowdy affair and hardly the kind of sendoff expected. Her
announcement disappoints some and shocks a few; one in particular
seems devastated. .The decision made, she makes her farewells to the
small crowd of wellwishers that sees her off, and starts when someone
shouts, "I'm always watching Mima's place!". At home in her tiny
apartment, she packs up the remnants of her old career. On the phone
she talks to her mother, receives a phone call of nothing but heavy
breathing, and then receives a fax with the word "traitor" repeatedly
written on it.
The next day sees the beginning of her new career as a minor
role in a psychological drama TV serial, "Double Bind", and a single
speaking line. Rumi, one of her managers and the one most dubious
about her career move, bitterly notes this is what she abandoned her
singing career for. She also tells Mima that "Mima's Place" actually
refers to a homepage on the World Wide Web that someone has
established. The day's shooting is interrupted when her other manager
is slightly injured; a fan letter for Mima he had just opened turns
out to be a letter bomb. A shred of the note reads "you've been
warned"...
Investigating the "Mima's Place" Web page for herself (after
buying a computer for the first time that day) she finds the 'diary'
entries detail her everyday activities in frighteningly minute
details.
Rumi and her other manager argue over the next script, which
expands Mima's role but also involves her in a rape scene. Mima agrees
to the script... The shooting of the scene is slightly disorienting
but Rumi runs from the control room in tears.
Mima finds the "Mima's Place" page entries professing to
outline her thoughts, and her revulsion at what she has been forced to
do. The lines "Somebody help me!" are repeated over and over...and she
is confronted by an onscreen image of her in her idol outfit who talks
to her, chiding her for giving up her singing career, answering back
at her protests...
Somewhere else, in a room plastered with photos of Mima,
someone is adding entries to the Web page on his computer...
The ongoing publicity campaign for Mima's new career involves
a provocative nude photo shoot which she reluctantly participates in.
About this time, the scenarist for "Double Bind" is found butchered in
an elevator...
Some thoughts:
"Perfect Blue", based on a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi (the
title is never explained in this film) is a psychological thriller in
the Hitchcockian tradition. In it, the main character is thrown into a
series of increasingly brutal and disorienting events that threaten
her sanity and her life. The film has deliberate echoes to the films
that came before it, such as "Dial 'M' for Murder", "Vertigo",
"Psycho", "The Fan" (the Lauren Bacall version) and the recent spate
of stalker thrillers that most viewers of this film will likely be
more familiar with.
Though complex in execution, the psychological thriller film
itself can usually be broken down into a series of simple plot and
setting elements: an initially helpless individual; an everyday world
that increasingly becomes more threatening and less comforting, wide
open and exposed, or cramped and claustrophobic, increasingly seen in
a subjective light; a sense of paranoia; a questioning of both the
world around him/her; the doubt in one's own sanity; and a 'red
herring' or two just to keep the audience off balance as well.
"Perfect Blue" contains all of these, and emerges as a solid if not
necessarily exceptional example of the genre in cinema, though
possibly, as Ms. Nakagaki suggested in her speech, one now unique to
both cinema in general and anime in particular.
In this case "Perfect Blue" may become best known for its use
of controlled visuals; that is, a use of composed static shots and
editing technique more commonly seen in live action, rather than the
extensive use of kinetic tableaux seen in a single shot' with use of
camera tracking-in or -out or distorted angle shots. At the same time,
there are other flamboyant touches, such as the rotating pans,
circling pans, such as those pioneered by Hitchcock and in near
constant use ever since. As an example of 'mature anime' it is still a
bit more focused on visuals rather than dialogue; in other words, this
will never be mistaken for a film by Mamoru Oshii.
At the same time, the visual design strives to be scrupulously
realistic, something that seems outside of the realm or concern of
most anime filmmakers besides Mamoru Oshii or Katsuhiro Otomo, who in
fact is credited as a "special advisor" for this film. His influence
may be seen in how the everyday settings are detailed and the
character designs not inclined towards anime 'cuteness' or gross
caricature but for a few important cases; the color schemes remained
somewhat subdued though not monochromatic. Typically, the most care on
design is lavished on Mima herself, since her innocence and
guilelessness is implied more than it is expressed. The animation was
as fluid as one might expect of a major release, and especially of
production studio Mad House.
As an 80 minute feature the film can be said to contain more
plot than allows much detailed characterization. What little there is,
is shown solely for the purpose of driving the plot forward. If this
smacks of the type of shorthand typical of much anime, where voice
type and character design define personality almost to the point of
cliche, it may also be noted that few live action thrillers strive to
do any more either. As the dominant character, Mima is a bit unsure, a
bit naive, a bit resolute and mostly sympathetic. Little more is seen;
little more is needed.
In terms of sound, the film is also fairly subdued. Outside of
a few songs performed by "Cham" (both with and without Mima as one of
the vocalists) the soundtrack is fairly minimalist, with little more
than a few splinters of atmospheric tones or distorted rhythmic
cacaphony to enhance the sense of unease.
As a possible international release, it's likely the film may
be seen as a comprehensive glimpse into certain aspects of modern
Japanese culture. Idol culture, idol worship, starmaking and
promotion, cyberculture, 'otaku' culture...as key plot elements the
dark and repellant side of these aspects are highlighted much like a
typical New York Times article on those very same things.
In noting the fact that this print would be longer than those
that would be released in Japan in 1998, the festival organizers
suggested that some scenes of extreme violence or nudity would be cut,
probably to comply with the censorship laws there. If on first thought
this seems like a rare case where a film needed to be cut to suit the
domestic audience, an immediately following thought is that this may
also be seen as pandering towards the overseas audience tastes, or
possibly even the mainstream expectations of what most anime is. In
truth and in context, it wasn't that extreme, as this was basically
advertised as a film for mature audiences. Still, the idea that
foreign tastes and perceptions of anime (in terms of gore and sex) may
be shaping the genre to forms that are unpresentable to Japanese
audiences is an irony that is not likely to be lost on the anime fans
who see this film. How many of them will find this humorous is another
story.
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Rex Entertainment Presents a Mad House/Oniro Production
Perfect Blue
General Producer Takeshi Washitani
Executive Producers Koshiro Kanda
Yuichi Tsurumi
Producers Masao Maruyama (Mad House)
Hiroaki Inoue (Oinro)
Associate Producers Hitomi Nakagaki
Yoshihisa Ishihara
Yutaka Togo
Planning Koichi Okamoto
Yoshikazu Takeuchi
Animation Director
& Character Design Hideki Hamazu
Art Director Nobutaka Ike
Color Setting Satoshi Hashimoto
Editor Harutoshi Ogata
Director of Photography Hisao Shirai
Sound Effects Director Masafumi Mima
Executive Music Producer Tetsu Saito (iNoks Records)
Music A&R Director Masaaki Hori (iNoks Records)
Music Masahiro Ikumi
Production Design Mitsusuke Hayakawa
Screenplay Sadayuki Murai
Based on the Character
Design by Hisashi Eguchi
Based on the Novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi
Special Adviser Katsuhiro Otomo
Director Satoshi Kon
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