Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue shines not only as a movie, but is also impressive as a directional debut into film. This being someone's first movie reminds me heavily of Ari Aster and his debut, Hereditary. Both films are impressive feats for any Director, let alone a debut. They also get to share the similarity of being phenomenal movies.

Perfect Blue is about the descent of Mima's mental state. This not only works as an interesting focus, but it also allows the audience to not know if something actually happened. Even after finishing the movie and the perpetrator being known, I still doubt multiple scenes in the movie. We don't truly know who killed the victims, or how Mi-Mania truly got involved. And yet this is exactly why the movie works, it's blend of real and the unknown create a spectacle that I can't even put into words properly.\

The descent of Mima's mental state in the movie is the highlight, because of both the unknowingness of the movies' scenes, and also the spectacle of how the movie is shown to us. The severe use of match cuts both amplifies the parallels of double bind, the television show she is in, and her real life. I personally believe some of the scenes in the movie show us Rumi as Mima. Due to her room being a perfect replica of Mima's, and her believing she is Mima, some scenes can easily pass off as being from her perspective.

There are few and far between scenes that we know for a fact even happened. Like Rumi dressing up like Mima, and the deaths actually happening. Everything else after she became an actress is up in the air in terms of believability. It's scenes like this that truly highlight my favourite moments in the film.

Another highlight of the movie, is the epilogue. In the final scene, the ominous final line said by Mima, "I'm the real one!" is voiced by Rumi's voice actress, further twisting what is happening and what is a hallucination. An enhancement of this decision is that Mima's singing voice in an earlier song, is also voiced by Rumi's Voice Actress.

An impressive yet unsurprising fact I learnt is that Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan was heavily inspired by Perfect Blue. When you watch either movie after the other, the similarities are abundantly clear, yet it is still a feat for Perfect Blue. This information also serves as the perfect example PB's reach as a movie.

I hadn't even heard of Kon as a filmmaker before this movie got recommended to me. Now because of Perfect Blue, I'm going to go through all of them. First Millennial Actress, then Paranoia Agent. Just as Perfect Blue threw him into the spotlight as his directional debut, it's throwing me into his entire catalogue.

A Konathon, if you will