Berlin Int. Film Festival -- re: Perfect Blue &

[Anne McKnight]

Of the films you mentioned, I'd like to point out one in particular one
film I've seen and quite liked (PERFECT BLUE, dir. SATOSHI Kon).  I'm not a
huge anime-head in general, but this one really blew me away -- actually,
"liked" is not the spot-on word for my gut reaction.  I'm not sure whether
I want to plug the film, or pull the plug on it. It's about a young
up-and-coming pop star (idol), Mima, who claws her way up the ragtag ladder
of success largely by proxy -- through various management decisions of her
handlers.  These are a gum-chomping seen-it-all type, and a former idol who
plays the kind of confidante, mom-away-from-mom role.  The two differ on
Mima's career path, as the boss-man wants Mima to "evolve" into an actress,
seeing that the glory days of the idol system are over.  He also sees that
there is greener grass, and bundles of it!!! on the acting side of things. 


So Mima starts a career in TV drama acting, and quickly heads down the
primrose path of success, from 0-60 in 5 seconds, where 60 is the nude
photo spread in weekly pulp rags and a "rape scene" in the TV drama. 
Meanwhile, it appears that Mima is being stalked by a high-tech fan, who
puts made-up diary entries into a Web page (s)he calls "Mima's Room."  For
Mima this is one big creepout.  She gets into a hell of a moebius-strip of
a fiction-reality confusion between the TV show, the stalkers, the 'net,
the push-me-pull-you logic of her handlers.  Dear viewer is not far behind
in this narrative mayhem, baiting and switching a mile a minute.  It's
quite interesting, and the dizziness of the plot makes you forget the
initial klunko Acme animation sequences -- e.g. crowd & performance
reaction shot/reverse-shots of Mima's ur-band Cham in which the background
stays still except for one tinny flash bulb, giving the effect of watching
bunraku more than "high tech." 

Actually, following the plot made my head go places I'm not sure it should
go.  Maybe I'm suffering under the misconception that anime are supposed to
be about fantasy -- but the reality of it is that the sheer energy needed
to curate various kinds of information of a very basic sort (like space &
time) made my brain hurt.  Sadly, the ending is rather predictable -- the
doting manager Rumi turns out to be harboring a grudge against the pretty
and saucer-eyed Mima, and turns out to have engineered the whole thing,
basically because she's a has-been who can't handle the success of the slim
and nubile younger generation.  The "industry expose" logic put across by
the rest of the film which bares the structures & poses the question of
"whodunnit" -- what goes into the making of an idol, the pressures of
industry etc. -- seems to now rest on the shoulders of the frumpy and
wickedly envious Rumi.  This kind of took the air out of the film for me,
by bringing it back to some weird code of "realism" and some kind of
kanzen-choaku thing I  didn't really want to think about.

Apart from the macabre industry expose plot of Perfect Blue, it was
interesting to see it all played out through one protagonist, as if through
a "case study."  In contrast, I'm thinking of the several recent, and quite
interesting, "loose socks sagas" such as LOVE & POP, BOUNCE/KOGALS, and I
think there's one actually called LOOSE SOCKS.  It was also interesting to
see the credits, and to notice (as my friend I saw it with did) that most
of the animators' names were Korean.  

Pardon the natty longish resume, but it was a film about as intricately
crafted as a doily.  Unless of course this rate of information is standard
fare for anime-watchers and I'm just an information wuss.

The second movie I wanted to point out I actually haven't seen, but the
director's previous 2 films (DANGAN Runner & Postman Blues) lead me to
believe it has potential, if it is not downright awesome -- which is to
say, Sabu's UNLUCKY MONKEY.  Briefly, he has a knack with thugs. 
Especially thugs with wide eyes and shit-eating grins.  And he knows how to
make a soundtrack that doesn't strangle the rest of the film and send it to
a watery, tear-jerky grave with the pathos of pure volume.  His editing is
really smart and his camera is really restless and works montage editing in
creative (some might say merely aggressive) ways.  I'm not sure what's up
with UNLUCKY MONKEY but if one can gauge from his previous films, I think
he's ready to get sprung from the genre-parody picture (where the jokes are
spun out slightly too long for their own good) and cut loose with something
out on its own limb, but that's just hearsay from inside my own head.

Anne McKnight
Comp Lit, UC Berkeley