A film so prescient it feels prophetic, Perfect Blue makes its way to 4K!
A common trope of cinema is to “turn the mirror around”; to tell stories that reflect the world around us. It’s a common trend and theme across all genres, and can be delivered both heavy handedly or subliminally, both as a reflection of the current world, or a gaze down the road of where we’re headed.
With Perfect Blue, director Satoshi Kon not only looks at a reality that was already beginning to bubble under the surface in 1997, but also predicts a future state of entertainment culture that is genuinely eerie in its precision.
Perfect Blue follows Mima Kirigoe (Junko Iwao), a pop star who is attempting to shift her career towards acting, and her perceived image away from the bubblegum pop of her youth into something edgier, more mature. What she quickly realizes is the ripple effect her decision has made, bringing violence and chaos into her life as her “fans” try to force her back into the reality they prefer.
Perfect Blue came into existence at a very unique time; a time where the internet existed, but was not widely used. Rather than a global super utility, it was still small, a place where communities began to spring up and grow in near complete secrecy, hidden away from the eyes of wider society. That type of anonymity can lead to something incredibly dark.
The world that exists under Mima, the fans of hers that congregate at the edges of her concerts and at the edges of society, exists on the internet. After a quick tutorial on what the internet is, Mima quickly discovers “Mima’s Room”, a webpage that purportedly is her personal online journal. Mima’s reality starts to unravel as she reads about the exploits of “fake Mima”, who seemingly exists in an alternate reality where she never stopped being a pop star (just like her fans want).
Soon, that same fan who runs “Mima’s Room” appears to her in her day-to-day reality, looking to destroy everything about Mima that is new, and return to the old, even if it means destroying Mima herself.
It’s not only similar to our modern cultural disarray, but is almost 1:1 when it comes to the rot of parasocial relationships, where fanatics from all corners of fandom believe themselves to be personally involved with the lives of their favorite shows, movies, books, actors, etc. Regular people, swallowed whole by online discourse, edging themselves towards psychosis by allowing their own obsessions to manifest into fabricated relationships.
And, god forbid, said show/book/movie series decides to change in any sort of way, evolving into a new version or style. The parasocial contract has now been broken, and out come the proverbial (and usually digital) knives.
Perfect Blue is the perfect encapsulation of that exact type of broken social contract between creator and fan. Mima is a real person, who makes mistakes, has feelings, and exists in society as the rest of us do. But the Mima that society has deemed “real” is ephemeral, a bubbly pop diva who only exists within the confines of her persona, giggling with every other word and literally bouncing to and fro.
It is a digital fantasy that carries the weight of the world, born both from the anxiety and fear Mima has of making a mistake in her life decisions, and a bubbling rage from the fandom that feels “cheated”. In that, Perfect Blue is about the creation of a cultural tulpa, born out of the push and pull of creator vs. consumer. A tulpa that we manifest almost daily in a post-social media world.
Special Features:
- Complete 117 minutes of Lectures by Director Satoshi Kon subtitled in English for the First Time
- “Angel of Your Heart” Recording Session and Full English Version
- Cast and Crew Interviews
- Theatrical Trailers
