Back From The Dead: Perfect Blue

Right about here is where I’d intended to write about the French film The Shiver of the Vampires, which was slated for 4K release on 22nd June. That’s been put back to August now (fret not, Back From the Dead will cover it in a later blog). But this does give me the fantastic opportunity to highlight Perfect Blue (1997), which got its 4K release last week, and is one of a select list of films I’ve seen that’s earned the title of Proper Fucked Up.

I don’t normally get on with anime (it’s the sterile soundscapes I struggle with), but Perfect Blue is one of those films that transcends its medium. Like Spirited Away (2001), Akira (1988) or Ghost in the Shell (1995), Perfect Blue is a film that is all-things-anime (the false start is a particularly delicious tease), as well as being all-things-film. And — as stand-alone story — it doesn’t require devouring pages of lore to appreciate.

This psychological horror tale follows Mima Kirigoe, a successful J-pop artist who decides to launch an acting career. But a traumatic rape scene in an early project triggers a downward spiral of horror that leaves the viewer never quite certain if we can trust what we are seeing. 

A slow-burner, the film takes a little over 20-minutes to lean into the horror. But Mima’s discovery of a blog called ‘Mima’s Room’, seemingly written in the first-person (by her??) signals the beginnings of themes that that play as beautifully as they do brutally with identity, obsession and madness. 

But this is not just another stalk-’n’-terrorize flick. There’s the real sense that everyone — from the creepy fan (expertly drawn to instil semi-conscious disgust), to the phantasmic doppelgänger who taunts Mima through the streets, to the very real and very dangerous serial killer on the loose — doesn’t just want to hurt Mima. They want to be her.

In this respect, the film is reminiscent of other obsession-driven horror films, like Red Rooms (2023), Black Swan (2010) or The Fan (1981), from which the plot might seem to have been lifted, were it not for the second half mental (and also narrative) breakdown.

The final shot will leave you wondering still how much of what we have seen we can really trust, but — as I said on first viewing — Perfect Blue is a Perfect 10 and is out now on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD and (if you can find it, VHS also).

~Secret Geek