Perfect Blue – A mind-blowing classic that lives up to its reputation

Hey guys what is up welcome back to my blog I’m so thankful that you guys took the time out of your day to read my blog post. Hope you all are safe from the COVID-19 and having a great day. I am blown away by this movie. I thought that people were just nostalgic about when they first experienced the movie and talking it up but man, this one blew all the expectations out of the water. I’ll only give very small details of the plot here so expect only mild SPOILERS.

The story shows us Mima Kirigoe, a successful idol with her band CHAM. She gives a final performance to her audience and tells them of her decision to leave the group to pursue a career in acting. She lands a role in a murder mystery thriller that has her shed her ‘innocent’ persona. Discovering a blog on the internet named Mima’s room, which is supposedly written by Mika herself, she discovers that the entires are scarily accurate even when she hasn’t written them herself. As she is harassed by a stalker and the entries on the blog itself trouble her, she is asked to do a rape scene for the show which is shot in great detail and the lines between illusion and reality blur for her as well as us.

The characters are hard to handle in a movie where you have to make sure that they all do their job for the plot while the audience also gets to understand them. I will not talk about any of the characters here for the sole reason that I risk spoiling the plot for you all and I do not want that. All I’ll say is that Perfect Blue handles it’s characters pretty well with giving us a small insight into their personalities and who they are. While it’s tough to call some of the character’s complex, Perfect Blue isn’t a series that needed unnecessarily complex characters, the parts of them that were shown, were enough for the plot.

The movie really works well in confusing the audience between illusion and reality which I later came to know is a speciality of Satoshi Kon. As the movie progresses, you as the audience will also get entrapped in the thrilling mystery story that has been written. The visuals are very good considering the film is from 1997. I’ve always loved these mystery thriller type stories as evident from my love for The File of Young Kindaichi and this film really really manages to impress me with its mind bending plot and using the perfect visuals and cuts between the scenes and setting the perfect atmosphere.

There are a lot of thing I would like to talk about but most of them will be filled with spoilers so instead I’ll talk about the one thing that doesn’t spoil too much. The struggles of changing careers and regret of change, that is what I believe Perfect Blue shows a lot as Mima herself struggles with the change in careers and the work that she has to do while also showing that change is tough and people often regeet change but sometimes change is necessary to move forward. Sometimes it’s necessary to make leaps and let things be uncertain for a while to make the rest of the path more clear.

The film is filled with twists and the finale itself is one big final twist that lulls you into a sense of security of almost knowing what has happened, until it turns it all over and brings the story to a stunning conclusion. By blurring the lines between illusion and reality, keeping you guessing about what will happen next and having some pretty good music to go with that, Perfect Blue is truly a classic that lives up to the hype and a must watch for all mystery thriller lovers.

So that is it for this post guys hope you got some value from this.  Thank you guys for reading to the end hit me up on Instagram and Twitter with your thoughts and if you have any ideas on what I should write about. Stay safe from the COVID-19. Thank you again and I’ll see you all next week.