Perfect Blue

let's get it out of the way: wow yes there are some definite similarities between perfect blue and black swan !! it’s undeniable - obsession is a crucial theme. mirror shots. the protagonists are mima & nina, they're performers, they're haunted by themselves, they take baths, they need therapy etc etc etc lots of parallels, for sure. darren aronofsky has freely admitted loving perfect blue & kon's work and openly paid homage in requiem for a dream (by the by, i actually think that film is more in line with what perfect blue is doing). but i think for people to say that black swan is a rip-off of this film is disingenuous. they have similar dna, yes, but ultimately diverge in a few pretty key ways that i don't feel like going into; i honestly don't think they're about the same thing at the end of the day (check the final line from each film - "i was perfect" from black swan and a variation of "i'm the real one!" from perfect blue). briefly, black swan is focused on perfection, perfect blue on existence itself; they just happen to use similar concepts to look at them. cut from the same cloth with the fabric used differently. moving on from that, i definitely can't fully articulate everything i felt & experienced while watching perfect blue; i don't even know what the "proper" plot is yet. i'm sure i'll need at least a couple more watches before coming up with anything particularly useful or coherent but i still want to throw some first thoughts at the wall:  - i was anxious and protective and paranoid and disturbed and enthralled and a host of other things. i simultaneously couldn't move and wanted to crawl out of my skin. this movie makes one of the best cases for the use of animation as a medium - the dreaminess and fluidity of mima's point of view is so perfectly represented by animation's ability to morph and capture angles & ideas that are difficult (if not impossible) for live-action to pull off. the contrast of this being animation and the sheer psychological and physical anguish present throughout the entire film is disconcerting and so fucking effective.  - the amount of sexualisation that mima faces in her new career as an actress is still so startlingly relevant and upsetting. the perversion of her eagerness to make a name for herself has too many parallels in the real world and watching it all unfold in the form of the rape scene and the photoshoot is to feel your stomach sink and your skin crawl. the suffocating close-ups of mima's face and body really just add to the voyeuristic quality, until you as the viewer feel unbelievably dirty, like you're complicit in everything that's happening. and in a way you are, whether that's because stuff like this plays out in reality all the time or because we're just as fascinated by mima and her life and her existence as the people in the film; mima belongs to her stalker and to her managers and to her fans and to her industry and to her neuroses and to us. - the concepts of illusion & reality and self & non-self obviously play big roles in this film. the editing really fucks with your own perception of what's real and what isn't and i was constantly going back and forth regarding what, exactly, i thought was happening at any given moment. it's dissociative in a way black swan, for example, isn't to me. i found myself wanting to pinch myself, just as a reminder that i was real and alive and sitting in a cold room watching a movie on a screen. and the film keeps you in this for the entire runtime - the ending doesn't do much to ultimately relieve the pressure and seems hellbent on keeping you locked into an existential nightmare. so yeah that’s all, in conclusion it was Very Good