Perfect Blue [1997]: An Idol's path to madness, or a portrait of Japanese depravity?
Oh, Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan... What are we going to do with you? You have given us so much... From the technology to play videogames to the best cameras on the market, without forgetting that the best and most critical minds of a country, which is nothing more than an archipelago of islands, have also brought us together in culture and deep admiration for its vast and fascinating way of making animation (manga, anime), but, we also have to talk about how strange some customs and habits are in the land of the Rising Sun... And yes, this review will go beyond the apparent. Today we will talk about Perfect Blue, but also about the white elephant in the room: the normalisation of harassment/abuse in Japan.
I'm not exactly a symbol of feminism in the West, nor do I fly any political flags, but what Perfect Blue masterfully unfolds in its 70+ minutes of film is a story of ennui, of social pressure but fundamentally of harassment/abuse. Clearly, this is one of those things where perspective plays a key, relavant role in judging a work of art such as this feature film... But it is undeniable not to mention the sunculture of Idol girls in Japan.
A country that has normalised things that we in the West, even today, would struggle to really understand. A group of girls, young, beautiful, talented, displaying their singing talents in rooms full of much older men, sometimes up to twice their age, with few women, and where ‘groping’ and ‘innuendo’ are a daily occurrence. As a woman myself, I felt totally connected to the protagonist and her anxieties.... That, although it seems very un-Japanese (since existentialism is always used in anime), the protagonist questions everything except this, which I highlight here.
Depravity is the law. To the point that Perfext Blue develops a psychological thriller that shows us, the audience, the murky issues of Japanese society. Harassment by ‘fans’ (men) obsessed with the fictitious figure of a singer (Idol) and what she is always (perpetually) supposed to keep, no matter what... To the point, that this film, which is beautiful but hard, raw, at times super uncomfortable to watch, shows scenes that I wouldn't dare to relate in HIVE but which are aimed at a ‘carnal possession’ of the protagonist, in short of the woman in the story; and therefore in Japan, by extension...
‘Perfect Blue’ has been recognised for dealing with these kinds of issues since 1997. And believe me, in a society as authoritarian as Asian societies tend to be, but especially in Japan, where hierarchy marks from the greeting to how much money you get, what we can see in this film is a powerful but equally bloody essay of obsessions, abuses, calamities that have been fatally normalised in Japan, but above all; the struggle of a protagonist who must go to hell itself and survives to stand out of an extremely toxic but amazingly little debated environment. I insist, this is not a work that pretends to be anything but like ‘Black Swam’ (yes, with Natalie Portman) it is impossible not to generate an opinion...