Perfect Blue
Perfect Blue
R | 20 August 1999 (USA)
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Encouraged by her managers, rising pop star Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered.

Reviews
Artivels

Undescribable Perfection

Claysaba

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Dynamixor

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

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Fairaher

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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ale_cya

Great character development. A sour experience, don't let the cartoonish image of the film mislead you, this is a confusing not superficial film. A truly dramatic and melancholic development

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sasata-29793

One of the singular most original animated films I have ever seen. The story is about an ex pop idol who wants to become a filmstar. On a social level, it deals with the obsession of the Japanese industry with violence and sexual exploitation, but what captivated me most was its use of dream sequences. Dream sequences, or various variations of those, are not exactly a new theme. However, in most cases, they do not follow the dream logic to the extreme. Often they reduce to the common world rationality on some level, or tend to clearly distinguish between reality and dreams. However, for me, Kon's film grew organically into a film where the reality smoothly becomes the illusion, as the protagonist falls increasingly into a nighmarish reality. In my opinion, it would be very interesting to have an analysis of the film from the perspective of technological revolution, that analyzes the world of Satoshi Kon's imagination as a product of the tech bubble. To my distinction, the film managed to overcome a story to become existential in nature; pertaining questions on the nature of reality and the distinction between fiction and fact. At its best, it stayed on the level of some of Borges' finest fictions and evoked questions regarding nature of the 'lost' reality in our present age.

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sol-

A young pop singer tries to break out into acting, only to find that the psychological thriller that she is starring in has eerie parallels to her own life in this mind-bending animated drama from Japan. The plot here is rather challenging to decipher with reality and fantasy constantly blurring into one. It is also often hard to work out whether other characters are talking to her (or about her) in reality or in the film-within-the-film. While occasionally frustrating, this ambiguity is one of the film's best assets as it provides an insight into the thinking disturbed patterns of the aspiring actress and her deepest fears and insecurities. There is also a deranged stalker in the mix and an internet blog that claims to be written by her (but isn't). Also, in a personal identity crisis, she keeps seeing visions of herself as a pop icon, with the doppelganger claiming that the actress version of herself is not her real self. Director Satoshi Kon apparently only opted to animate the tale when interest for a live action incarnation began to wane, however, he manages to come up with such striking images that is hard to imagine the film having the same effect sans animation. There is an especially memorable bit in which the approaching headlights of a truck blur into stadium lights. The film also makes for a surefire curio nowadays with its insight into the early days of public domain internet where everyone could claim to be anyone.

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lewiskendell

I usually pride myself on figuring out the twist or ending of a thriller long before it's formally revealed, but I'm proud to say that Perfect Blue kept me in the dark right up until it was ready to divulge its secrets. Anyone who likes anime and is looking for a good mystery will fall right in love with Perfect Blue.It's difficult to give much of a sense of what the film is about with spoiling the plot. But essentially, its about a Japanese pop singer named Mima who leaves her musical group and decides to become an actress. She's not entirely happy about the things that she's forced to deal with in her new career, and she starts experiencing odd hallucinations as people around her start to die in brutal ways. This is definitely an intense movie, and some of the scenes are very violent. It's nothing that a fan of action anime hasn't been exposed to before, but it bares mentioning anyway.I thought the pacing was a little slow at the beginning, but this pays off well once the story gets going, so maybe that's not too big of a deal. The art style leans toward realism in a very pleasing way that aids in telling such a serious story. I'm sure that there are not very many serious anime fans that haven't seen Perfect Blue, and with good reason. It's an excellent thriller that surpasses many of the live-action movies in the genre that I've seen recently.

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