What? This Isn't True! I Didn't Write This! - Perfect Blue (1997)

Animation is something that we can all relate to. Be it a young girl becoming lost in an imaginary fantasy land in Lewis Carrol’s Alice In Wonderland or Neo-Tokyo being over run by biker gangs and a revolution in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. I can always remember watching the traditional Disney films, plus our family was lucky enough to have a free version of cable television so I was able to watch Cartoon Network. However when I was also reasonably young I remember finding out that animation was also for adults as well in the source of Manga. One of the first films I remember watching was the bewildering Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue.

The film is quite hard to explain so I shall do my best. Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller that tells the story about Mima Kirigoe, a pop idol in the Japanese pop sensation CHAM! It tells the story of how Mima leaves the pop group to become an actress in a drama called Double Blind. Mima becomes aware of a website, "Mima's Room", that seems to be dictating her life.

While working on Double Blind, Mima's manager Rumi, who is against her move to television work, manages to get her a bigger role in the production. However the role given to her is a rape scene. Rumi is against it however Mima agrees to do it. However afterward she realises that she didn't enjoy the scene at all. The scene is similar to one in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream, Mima is clutching herself in the bath and screaming.

Matters take a dramatic turn when several of those who had forced unsavory work on her are gruesomely murdered. She finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and in addition she can't in fact recall if she had committed any of the killings or not.

It turns out that the diarist of "Mima's Room" is herself totally delusional and very manipulative, and that an intense folie à deux has been in play. The faux diarist, who believes herself to be a Mima who is forever young and graceful, has made a cat's-paw and serial killer of the stalker Me-Mania.

Mima smashes Me-Mania with a hammer in self-defense when he attempts to rape her, and runs to her only support she has left alive, her manager Rumi - only to find that Rumi is the false diarist, who believes she is the "real" Mima. She manages to incapacitate Rumi in self-defense after a chilling chase through the city despite being wounded herself. A year later and Rumi is in a mental hospital and Mima has managed to move on with her life.

The first time I watched Perfect Blue I was nine, and didn’t get the film at all. However I was just amazed that animation was not only for kids, and could be full of actual gratuitous sex and violence. Six years later, I had completely forgotten the film existed until one night I was watching the SciFi channel and realised that I had seen this film somewhere before but couldn’t place it where. So I went out and bought it on video and was entertained again and again.

It’s the sort of film that if Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney would conger up if they had ever worked together. It is a psychological nightmare that may mess some of you up the first time you watch. It’s a great step for those who have never watched any other form of animation other that children’s animation. Especially for those of you who liked messed up stories and something a little challenging.

"Excuse Me...Who Are You?"

For the trailer - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=49J31oHQAtg