Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997)
A thriller about fans simultaneously obsessing over the personal trivia of a pop star’s life and mistaking one public image among many for the “real thing”? Haha, wow, so great we’re past all that now—oh—well, nevertheless…
People-pleaser Mima is a “pop idol,” getting up on stage and performing a kind of cute feminine affect for, mostly, judging by the concert attendees, guys her age or older. She decides to leave the band to pursue acting, partly because there’s adoration but no money in being a idol, partly because she’s aging out of it, and partly, I think, because she has actual if very muted ambitions in that direction. She gets a role in a drama series that seems like it’s a bit of a rip off of Silence of the Lambs (Jodie Foster gets namedropped at one point, actually, though for a different role).
Her old fans don’t lo…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Notebook to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.