Amateur Recommendation Hour: Perfect Blue

Today’s recommendation is the scariest film I have ever seen. Some will dispute whether or not it actually qualifies as horror. I personally think it does in one of the most unique possible ways. It's uniquely layered and deceptive intensity through all of its surrealist bag of tricks is what makes it feel grounded in a reality that many will be able to identify with, even if not experienced in such magnitude as portrayed in the film.

[Content Warning: This film contains graphic depictions of violence, stalking, and sexual abuse]

Perfect Blue, directed by surrealist master Satoshi Kon (May he Rest In Peace) follows Mima Kirigoe, a member of a Japanese idol group “CHAM”, decides to retire from music to pursue an acting career. As she becomes a victim of stalking, gruesome murders begin to occur, causing Mima to lose her grip on reality. Her everyday life becoming a battle of attrition against her quickly regressing sanity.

It is a masterclass, maybe even a blueprint, in how to make everyday life feel terrifying and menacing. Whereas most horror opts for locales such as a night on an abandoned property or a trek through a fog engulfed town, Perfect Blue’s horror is presented in broad daylight aboard on public transport and busy streets. The sense of dread and tension conveyed through the sun-drenched bustle of Tokyo is unlike anything I’d ever experienced in a horror work before.

Ironically what I'm about to say may potentially turn viewers away even further, but if you bare with me it's possible even the faintest of hearts may be convinced into why this work is such a cinematic and artistic marvel, even if you yourself may not want to see it for totally understandable reasons.

Those of us who struggle with mental health issues, to any degree, anywhere on the spectrum are familiar with its spikes and most unforgiving moments. The mundanity of life is anything but mundane. Going to the grocery store can elicit a sense of dread and over-stimulation knowing what awaits. The crowds bustling, voices overlapping, momentary social interaction potentially inducing anxiety and panic. In the moment it is a relentless cavalcade of excessive awareness, tension, catastrophizing anything and everything that could go wrong or get worse. To many it may seem like just another part of everyday life, to others it is a mountain they must climb. That explanation alone should be enough to convince you how this films broad imitation of life is so unique and unparalleled. Even the aftermath of such an experience may lead to a different kind of dread and terror.

My interpretation of this work is that it is a criticism of parasocial relationships between those with public careers and those who follow them. And the potentially dangerous duality between the person and the persona, the public face, and the private person. With the mass usage of social media, we all have a public presence that looks exactly how we want to look to others, leaving out the details we don't want, even if those details are an important reflection of our true selves. At what point do the lines between what we want and what we are blur? What kind of person do we become? Who we want to be or who others want us to be? These are just a few of the many multi-layered and introspective questions this particular work asks of us.

I believe that each of us can relate to this work to varying degrees even if we are not a public figure ourselves. Most of us have a social media presence in which we only show what we want others to see. In a way it has more relevance today than when it was released in 1997 due to the advent of social media and the interconnected society in which we have today due to technological advances made since to allow for a more interconnected public space.