Rent Perfect Blue on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Yoshikazu Takeuchi (novel), Satoshi Kon (screenplay, uncredited) and Sadayuki Murai (screenplay)
Directed by: Satoshi Kon
Starring: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shiho Niiyama
Rated: NR [R]
Watch the trailer
Plot
A pop singer gives up her career to become an actress, but she slowly goes insane when she starts being stalked by an obsessed fan and what seems to be a ghost of her past.
Verdict
This is one trip of a movie, though being animated dulls the effect and horror. Mima changes professions but wonders if she made a mistake. With the stressful role, regret, and a stalker, she feels like she's losing her grip on reality. The border between reality and the scenes she portrays while acting begin to blur. When people she knows are killed, she wonders if she's be capable of the horrid crimes.
It depends.
Review
Pop star Mima retires from music to become an actress. It upsets her fans and a letter indicates she has a stalker. This causes her to doubt the transition, and her first role is a racy part that upends her clean-cut pop star image. It's a difficult role that only complicates her feelings about her career change as her manager pushes for a bigger role.
Mima begins having visions or hallucinations. It might be stress from everything going on, but in these visions her past self discourages the acting pursuit. She becomes increasingly disconnected from reality. Neither she nor we know what's real or not. We don't know the underlying cause, and it might be a combination of everything going on.
When people Mima knows get murdered, indications are that Mima might be involved. With her disconnections from reality, it makes the audience wonder if she's blacking out and involved. It's unlikely, but with this movie who knows what's going on.
That's what makes the ending ambiguous. Everything seems to work out for Mima, a little too well. The movie has already blurred the line between real and fantasy. Is this really the conclusion or is this what Mima wishes happened?
Being animated detaches this from reality and creates a disconnect. The intriguing thing is that you could easily watch this and think everything is resolved, but you could also see it as another hallucination since everything works out so perfectly. It's unclear how this resolves; it depends on your perspective.
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