"PERFECT BLUE" - Yamato Video DVD

"If Alfred Hitchcock had been hired by Walt Disney, they definitely would have made a film like this."
Roger Corman

VENICE, YEAR 2006
Satoshi Kon landed in Venice in competition with his fourth animated feature film, "Paprika", attracting the curiosity and attention of the public (numerous and patiently lining up to win a seat in the room) and, finally, that of critics Italian after having almost gone unnoticed with "Tokyo Godfathers" (2003), the only one of his works to have enjoyed a passage in Italian cinemas.
The former disciple of Katsuhiro Otomo (also in competition this year at the Venice Film Festival) is now a young and successful director, capable of making splendid animated films with very low budgets. An independent in the crowded television mainstream of Japanese anime who is courageously carrying out a very personal, thoughtful and aesthetic film project never seen before. A worthy opponent of seasoned masters such as Hayao Miyazaki, Otomo, Mamoru Oshii.
The awards collected abroad and the certificates of esteem from critics and audiences do not seem to be wrong: the new golden boy of Japanese animation is Satoshi Kon.

BUT IN THE BEGINNING IT WAS ...
Back in time, the viewer's gaze cannot be confused. Satoshi Kon's apprenticeship in the world of animation is a period of fine-tuning a style and way of thinking about anime that is, paradoxically, the polar opposite of the stereotypes that otaku audiences love. A period in which he professionally comes into contact with Mamoru Oshii and with the master Katsuhiro Otomo (he directs for him "Magnetic Rose", one of the shorts that make up the film "Memories").
Above all, back in time the viewer's gaze merges with that of Mima Kirigoe, the protagonist of the film "Perfect Blue": a directorial debut that leaves everyone speechless. Public, specialized and non-specialized critics.
A film that answers the question: when had such a work ever been seen before?

SYNOPSIS
Mima Kirigoe, leader of the Cham group, is having a not-so-exciting time. Despite the support of fans, none of his songs have risen to the top of the charts. Maybe it's time for a change. Her agent thus offers her to leave the group and to try a career as an actress. Mima thus finds herself on the set of a TV Drama, without the support of anyone, also having to play a difficult and dramatic part. Unsure of her choice and worried about the future, the young woman begins to see a virtual specter of herself that does not spare her criticism and infamy. Suddenly everything that was reality for Mima begins to lose all contours and stability. Especially after discovering a site on the Net, called "Mima's room", where every gesture and action of hers is reported with maniacal dedication. After filming, the film is aired and a series of strange incidents affect those who worked in the fiction. In a dramatic whirlwind of events, what the TV Drama suddenly tells seems to come to life, in reality. Coincidences? Or a deliberately studied gesture? Who is behind the singer's sassy virtual specter?

I MAKE THE FILM, BUT IN MY WAY
"Perfect Blue" is based on a popular novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, a journalist and writer from Kansai. The idea of ​​making his book a film is all his own, but at first the producers imagine a film with real actors directed by Shimako Sato, former director of the horror movie "Wizard of Darkness", not a film of 'animation. When the project fails, Takeuchi turns to Masao Maruyama, director of the famous Madhouse studio. It is planned to make an OAV (original animation video, to be used for home video). The decision is made and Satoshi Kon enters the scene when he is made to read the script (the novel, he will later confess, he has never read it).
But the script doesn't convince him. With the frankness that is his own, he confronts his friend Maruyama and tells him that he will direct the film as long as he can rewrite the screenplay, with the help of an emerging young man named Sadayuki Murai, who has now become a renowned film and TV author.
"Perfect Blue" at this point is unrecognizable, the book is a memory. Kon puts the idea of ​​the film in the film and the reality-fiction boundaries turned upside down. He admits he doesn't know anything about idol and the internet, so he starts attending the rallies and concerts that gather thousands of fans but, above all, he runs to buy a PC and starts surfing the Net, realizing what today has become his official website .
The result is a surprising and elegant psycho-thriller (which the Japanese will hasten to rename "psycho-suspence-anime") full of twists and a surprise ending.
To make it happen, Satoshi Kon surrounds himself with excellent friends and collaborators such as Hisashi Eguchi, renowned cartoonist and illustrator; Hiroaki Inoue, producer of popular anime such as "Tenchi Muyo" and "Macross II"; and Katsuhiro Otomo as a special consultant.

PRESS
Director Satoshi Kon relentlessly portrays the horror of how our perception of everyday life can collapse when we start looking at it from a different point of view.
"Animage", July 1997

The drawback of not being alone, not even with yourself. Beyond its informal dress, so little attached to the manias of the otaku, Perfect Blue it is the dramatic chronicle of a shattered passion, of a dimension stereotyped elsewhere that is finally dismantled and analyzed. And persecuted. How Evangelion, but with more courage. It is the world of idols and otaku who, for once, give up all rights of vision (and profanation) to the viewer.
Mario A. Rumor, "Shin Man-ga!", November 1999

The use of animation rather than flesh and blood actors enhances the surrealistic elements of Perfect Blue. It is increasingly difficult to tell how real the camera is and how much part of Mima's imagination is, or how much someone is going to great lengths to convince Mima of what they see. […] Kon uses the psychological undertones of animation differently than "Millennium Actress" (2001), but the effect is equally surprising and imaginative.
Fred Patten, "Animation Magazine", October 2003.

BIOGRAPHY OF SATOSHI KON
Born October 12, 1963. He began working in the world of comics when he was still a university student. In 1986 he graduated from Musashino College of Fine Arts. Four years later he signed the comic "Kaikisen" and collaborated on the film "Rojin Z" and on the live action "World Apartment Horror" by Katsuhiro Otomo (of which in 1991 he designed the manga version). He participates as animator in the film "Hashire Melos" by Maasaki Osumi and in 1993 we find him in the staff of "Patlabor the movie 2". He writes and makes the short film "Magnetic Rose", the first episode of the omnibus "Memories" (1995).
He made his directorial debut with the acclaimed "Perfect Blue" (1997), a film that won the Audience Award at Fant'Asia 97 (festival held in Montreal). This film will be followed by: "Millennium Actress" (2001), "Tokyo Godfathers" (2003), the cult TV series "Paranoia Agent" (2004). With "Paprika" (2006), his fourth direction, he ends up in competition at Venice 2006.

DATA SHEET

Perfect Blue
Japan, 1997, 81 minutes
Subject: Yoshikazu Takeuchi
Screenplay: Sadayuki Murai
Directed by: Satoshi Kon
Character Design: Hisashi Eguchi
Animations: Hideki Hamazu
Editing: Harutoshi Ogata
Director of photography: Hisao Shirai
Art Direction: Nobutaka Ike
Music: Masahiro Ikumi
Production: Rex Entertainment / Madhouse / Oniro
Special advice: Katsuhiro Otomo

Dvd - Extra Content:

Character galleries
Ambience galleries
Character cards
Trailer

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