Perfect Blue
Such a mindfuck of a movie.
The film centers on Mima Kirigoe, a J-Pop idol who makes the decision to leave her girl group CHAM! in order to advance her upcoming acting career. Her first main gig is on the detective show "Double Bind", where she starts off only with one line but becomes more over a featured character over time. As Mima is filming for the series, people involved in her career start getting killed, notably the screenwriter who had written in a rape scene of Mima at a strip club and the photographer who had Mima let him take naked photos of her. At the same time, there is this stalker, Me-Mania, who frequently accesses a public website called "Mima's Room", essentially an updated online diary down to the most minute details about Mima's life, which makes Mima very paranoid that she is being followed. Throughout this, her manager and former idol Rumi expresses concern for Mima, although she is encouraging of Mima's Room and shows Mima how to use the newly developed Internet.
As the filming progresses, Mima loses more and more of herself and begins chasing what looks to be a body double of herself in her old J-Pop girl group outfit; her identity has become fragmented and she is driving herself crazy. It appears that Mima is behind the murders after finding the screwdriver used to kill the photographer in her closet. At one point, Me-Mania tracks down and attempts to rape and kill Mima, citing orders from "the real Mima" to eliminate the fake Mima, although Mima insists she is the real one; she is able to bludgeon him with a hammer and escape.
In the end though, it is revealed that Rumi has essentially been making Mima crazy. She is an obsessed fan of Mima's, with a duplicate version of Mima's bedroom and the person behind "Mima's Room", along with being responsible for the murders. Rumi dresses like Mima (hence, what appears to be a body double) and is fully convinced she is the real Mima and is the one enduring and suffering from the rape scenes (as if she is actually being raped) and violated by the naked photographs. Essentially, Rumi has transmitted her mental illness, her dissociative identity disorder, onto Mima, gaslighting Mima to think that she had been seeing double and was secretly a killer. I just think the plot is brilliant.
It's also crazy how relevant the commentary is to nowadays. "Stans" of female artists can be incredibly parasocial, acting as if they are close friends of the artist or even that they are the artist themselves, that they have such a deep connection with this person they don't know and they know better. We see this obsession in Rumi and Me-Mania, driven by thinking they are doing what is best for Mima. I also think the fact that Rumi is a former J-Pop idol is a really interesting look at the trauma of fame, that it's almost like a drug you need and you hallucinate after having withdrawals.
Overall, it's just really smart. I am personally not the biggest fan of animé and for sure some parts feel overdone (like overacted, sometimes borderline cringy), however I can still appreciate the artistic merit of this film. It was very confusing following the film because we are following an unreliable perspective of Mima as her mental health is suffering but upon reading explanations it became more clear.