Montealegre - Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue is a suspenseful and thrilling movie. The director of this movie is Satoshi Kon. The title of the movie is actually the translated kanji for the directors name. Though, the movie does reference blue throughout the movie a bit. I think the blue somewhat symbolizes immaturity, which is a characteristic of the main character, Mima. Mima was a pop idol from the Japanese music group, Cham. Mima seems to be a shy and somewhat immature girl, Though, through being persuaded by her manager, Tadokoro, that the fame of a pop idol quickly dies out, she decides to pursue becoming an actress. Mima's assistant, Rumi, does not agree much with the crossover. Rumi truly desires for Mima to stay with this pop idol image, but Mima goes with the acting career anyways. The thing about Mima is that she wants to be what she thinks everyone else wants her to be. She says herself that she wants to be an actress, though she is very hesitant with some of the scenes that she is expected to act out. One of the scenes Mima is quite hesitant about is a rape scene; Rumi tries to talk Mima out of the scene but she goes ahead and does so anyway. It seems the pop idol image is quickly fading, and Mima is becoming seen as something more “filthy”- something I don't think she ever intended for herself to be. From the beginning of the movie though, there seems to have been a character that has been stalking Mima. This stalker, Uchida, has a web page based on the life of Mima and updates the page daily. Uchida has been watching her for a long time, and heseems to be infatuated with the pop idol image that Mima was. Through the movie, Mima is filming a movie that seems to mirror everything that is going on in her real life. The movie begins to become confusing because of this; the viewer cannot tell which scenes are just movie scenes, her real life scenes, or maybe just illusions. Also, the identity of everyone becomes confusing throughout the movie as well. Mima is becoming confused with who she is, but not only that, there seems to be a mirror image of herself that is haunting her. The viewers come to find out towards the end of the movie that Rumi has multi personality disorder. Rumi believes that she is Mima in her pop idol image. Uchida and Rumi seem to be working together to run the web page for Mima. Eventually, Uchida goes after Mima for destroying the “perfect” pop idol image, but Mima kills him out of self defense. Rumi killed the three people in movie who came in the way of this pop idol images because she could not stand anyone interfering with it. This whole time, the viewer is still a bit confused with everything that is going on in the movie, but in the last scene the real Mima claims she is the real and true Mima.

I was pretty confused as I watched the movie; I honestly had no clue what was going on. Though, I suppose the point of the movie was to have the viewer second guess what was “reality” and what was an illusion.

In class we spoke about what reality really is. I was one of the students who was asked what reality was. Though, in reality when I was the one who was called on, I was not allowed to thoroughly explain myself. Well, yes, in life there is a true reality, though it's more clear to others than it is to some. Though, at the same time what is reality? I brought up the example that reality was that you make it to be. Life is how you see it. Someone's reality could be completely different someone else's reality, and I think that is what makes reality such a hard topic to talk about. Yes, people could complain that there is REAL and definite truth, but even then, everyone still sees "truth" differently. The reality of the matter is, what one believes to be true is his or her reality. If some believes something to be right, such as abortion, that is a reality to them. In their minds, in reality for them, abortion is completely right. Though, if you ask someone else who is against abortion, they will tell you the complete opposite and believe that to be true. That person will view their own belief as their reality. Both could consider the other to be delusional- meaning: the state of being deluded. Deluded from what exactly?- Reality. Which brings us to the matter of illusion. Something that is an illusion is something that gives a misleading impression of reality. So, therefore my example was not a matter of ethical value, it was simply an example. What people believe, is their own reality.  It does not make anything factual, but to the individual that is reality.Which makes sense when you think of the movie, because we spoke of illusions.