And behind door number 22... a guide to some music of the more traditional kind
Catherine Munn and Jacob Martin list their Top 5 programmes to watch over the festive period.
And behind door number nine... some dazzling musical delights
The complete arts guide, for week 9
Traditionally, the west views Anime with considerable disdain, seeing it as somehow inferior, with only the work of the exquisite Studio Ghibli ever approaching the mainstream; the rest are the preserve of individuals whose interests would be considered by many to be a little eccentric. Yet whilst many turn away and insist on only viewing ‘proper animation’ such as nice and pretty child friendly fare produced in the United States, Asia sends forth works of remarkable artistry, intelligence and maturity quite unlike anything produced in either Europe or America. This is definitely true of Satoshi Kon’s (Millennium Actress, Paprika) extraordinary debut feature Perfect Blue, described by Roger Corman as what would have happen if Alfred Hitchcock had worked for Disney.
It is a very strange tale, following a singer leaving her profession to start a career as an actress and the strange and threatening events that start to unfold, starting with threatening mail and working up to blood curdling murder. As our protagonist responds to this with a gradual descent into madness, it becomes impossible to tell the difference between reality, fantasy and the drama series she acts in. All of this is captured perfectly by director Satoshi Kon’s extraordinary use of visual images to detail her fracturing psyche, that it has to be said are heavily reminiscent of the work of Darren Aronofsky, particularly Requiem For a Dream and Black Swan, both of which this predates. The depictions of a failing grip on reality are remarkably alike in these films, from a shrieking wall of portraits to similarity in the splicing of images that come together to create brutally effective montages. Indeed, the bathtub sequence in Requiem For a Dream is taken shot for shot from this film, with Aronofsky buying up the English language rights in order to achieve this, so the influence of Perfect Blue has not gone unnoticed in the west.
After all, if you ever needed evidence that animation is certainly not just for kids, you need look no further. The story, for all its maturity, loses none of its edge in the medium and the film includes scenes that at times are surprisingly awkward and difficult to watch. If anything, it feels more vivid and colourful because of its form’s allowance for some stunning flights of fantasy, along with deep and rich characters, emotional integrity captured and displayed in superb detail and a story that proves intoxicating and deeply disturbing in the way only the best horror thrillers are.
One criticism often raised against films like Perfect Blue is that they might easily be made as live action, yet at the end of the day when creations of this quality and intelligence are the result, the medium does really does not matter. Here is a work of great emotional depth that really gets under the skin of its extremely troubled protagonist and is quiet simply brilliant.
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