>muh anime
When you get over the weird Japanese stuff, this film is kino. A masterpiece. Why has it not been appropriately adapted, despite being a perfect candidate? Are there any films that do as good a job with similar themes?
Black Swan was obviously inspired by the whole blurring of reality motif but it has substantial differences; Nina's major stressors are competition and perfectionism whereas Mima's are primarily isolation and identity. Frankly, for me Perfect Blue's treatment of its themes feels way more natural and well-done, especially considering Mima's position as a underconfident actress. The additional layer of depth provided Mima's shoots adds a ton. It's not that Mima's psychosis is any more jarring than Nina's when "the reveal" juxtaposes their experience to reality, it's that in Perfect Blue that reveal never really comes. Even after "reality" is revealed we don't trust it, and it only adds to the fog of confusion, which hangs much more heavily over Mima. The best moments of Perfect Blue are when Mima is at her lowest and those have no corresponding element in Black Swan.
The only other film I can think of that does something like this is Inland Empire from David Lynch. He approaches it from the same actor/shooting lens as Perfect Blue, and in a very compelling way. The first time I saw it in the movie it hit me like a truck. But I don't trust myself to know what the frick David Lynch is ever really saying in his movies.
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I only watch animes with middle school girls in them
Then unlike this thread you belong on Cinemaphile
But you should watch it anon, it's as good as the best of any contemporary kino.
based
Post is spot on. I'm not an anime guy at all but this film really stuck with me. It's legitimately a masterpiece.
Yeah, it sticks out in the medium for sure. It's a bummer it's not discussed seriously very much.
I find Millennium Actress to be a better film. I love Perfect Blue don’t get me wrong, but the former tells a more purely human story. Perfect Blue’s twists and turns feel a little gimmicky (most horror feels campy to me so this is likely my personal taste), where Millennium Actress is a more robust and touching character study
oh I forgot to mention Millennium Actress also has Susumu Hirasawa’s music and Perfect Blue does not, the difference between the quality of the score in both is stark.
I never watched Millennium Actress but now I'm going to, thanks for the heads up. I do get what you mean by the sort of narrow scope of Perfect Blue. What'd you think of Paprika? I didn't really like it at all (and it's why I never watched anything else of Kon's after).
I know PB was adapted from a novel, but what do you mean?
What do you think is good, or worth taking seriously? Every medium has it's fair share of trash and anime is no different. I might even grant that it has more trash than contemporary American TV/film; it's arguable. But if you dismissed an entire medium because 99% of what's written/filmed is trash, what would you be left with?
I loved Paprika, what didn’t you like about it? I think Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers are both better films, but Paprika has an incredible score and more importantly, forgive the brief tangent— I’m actually a huge fan of animation, if done correctly it can be so much more emotionally resonant than films because *literally everything* in the frame is methodically created where film is a little more shoot-from-the-hip. however, something that a lot of animation misses is that the freedom of animation should always be incorporated into the story/composition of the film, i.e. animation should be fully utilized to do things that would either look uncanny, or be straight up physically impossible to do with film. Paprika does this with aplomb. Millennium Actress also does this, so does Perfect Blue for that matter, iirc Tokyo Godfathers is the only Kon film that more or less could’ve just been filmed with actors.
I get it if you're coming at it from that perspective. Visually, I agree, it's extremely striking and I can't think of any animated films that really go as far, as successfully, as Paprika does in that department. But I went in expecting to see a sort of Inception that handled its thematic content with a lot more depth and substance (in addition to the animation aspect), and I wasn't able to get that from it. In retrospect my expectations for it were ridiculously high due to Kon's name, popular sentiment for it, and my predilection for themes that I knew Kon commonly hits; maybe I should give it another try as well after Millennium Actress.
Thanks for turning me onto Magnetic Rose, even if it is another director. Might as well check it out while I'm on this anime kick.
Yeah I agree, even if I do think you're short-selling the reasons they work. That Irma Vep show on HBO gets pretty close to Perfect Blue/Black Swan in a lot of ways for example, though it comes from another perspective entirely.
>Instead of portraying ennui and boredom as the result of all energy being zapped out of one's life, it was just boring.
I don't think that's what it was going for, or I just don't get what you mean.
>I don't think that's what it was going for,
If that wasn't what it was going for than it was even more of a disorganised mess than I thought.
>or I just don't get what you mean.
With her depression and bordering psychosis. The film making suggests they were trying to portray what it's like to be in that state of mind, where everything is mundane.
>But I went in expecting to see a sort of Inception
I saw Paprika before Inception even came out and tbh I can totally see how it would destroy your impression of the former. not to shit on Inception too hard but Chris Nolan and Satoshi Kon couldn’t be more different as directors. Nolan is an amateur at character depth by comparison, his films really hinge on spectacle while using YA-tier character development where all of Kon’s films are deep dives into the emotional and mental struggles of his characters. he doesn’t do the high concept shit outside of the visual composition. I’ll grant that even Paprika is kinda light on its character work compared to his earlier films. and yeah seriously watch Millennium Actress it makes me choked up just thinking about it
Yeah, the avalanche of comparisons between Inception and Paprika after Inception released totally fricked up my expectations. I was expecting "Inception, but good" and got something that couldn't be more different. I'll get to Millennium Actress tonight it looks like o/
For me it wasn't about Mima being in a state of mind where everything is mundane or boring and being depressed as a result of that. It was about Mima's new career and all its effects and all other peoples' ideas of her stressing her out to and beyond the point of mental breakdown and identity crisis. She didn't want to disappoint her fans, her managers, etc, but too many people had too many different ideas of what she should be and none of them were really hers. She wanted to do well acting but she wasn't confident in it and constantly had second thoughts. She took measures to shatter her image as an idol like being photographed nude and getting raped in a TV scene but they just fricked her up even more. She didn't know who she was becoming or whether or not that's what she wanted to be, especially since before she was an idol. That's the reason the tagline is "Who are you?"
more people need to watch Irma Vep it is a 10/10 in many ways, I've tried making threads but yea.. obviously..
I agree, It's solid. I hope the ending holds up, I haven't seen the new episode yet either. It also turned me onto Olivier Assayas' other work, have you watched any? I watched Non-Fiction and it was great. Clouds of Sils Maria was awesome too imo; he makes Kristen Stewart into a good actress.
Other stuff can be hit and miss, and he might be a little one-dimensional in his subject matter (art, artists, and the art industry), but it's easy to tell he's one of the best still working today for sure.
The best movies Kon did were
Millennium Actress
Perfect Blue
Magnetic Rose
In that order. Millennium Actress is his masterpiece.
>I find Millennium Actress to be a better film.
Same, it's Satoshi's best work. Paprika is fricking nonsense.
Magnetic Rose was Koji Morimoto
The "CGDCT" genre contains everything wrong with modern anime
Non Non Biyori isn't purely CGDCT, it's SOL first and foremost.
It's just a comfy inaka anime.
Girls und Panzer is amazing though
Garbage anime, stop propagating the lie that it's actually good.
>he's serious
>he doesn't know the source materials
KEK
Anime is just fricking bad and banal. Every single one people say is good is just shit without fail. It's not to be taken seriously.
Looks like someone hasn't seen Cream Lemon.
t. "man" who watches marvel soi
Watch Non Non Biyori. If you don't like it, then just give up on anime forever, cause it is peak kino.
>troony shit
Would you rather eat Big Boy Pizza or Big Body Pizza?
This film fricking SUCKED.
I have no idea how so many people watch this film and see none of its flaws. Waste of potential.
if you only seek flaws, every movie you watch will suck
I didn't only seek flaws, but this movie was not the subtle psychological masterpiece it was made out to be. Every intention of the director was exceedingly obvious.
Instead of portraying ennui and boredom as the result of all energy being zapped out of one's life, it was just boring.
Seriously, you should watch it again. Even if you don't like anime or it's too Japanese or whatever, Perfect Blue is among the most clever films I've ever seen as far as weaving its themes into virtually every scene. Mima's role in the movie she's shooting, Double Bind, is a character like her that's suffering from a mental breakdown. Events that happen in "reality" mirror the events in Double Bind. Mima doesn't always know when she's acting and when she's not, and the film is basically a point-of-view look at how fricking nuts she becomes. It's a trip.
Mima's story and arc work because she's japanese, Nina's story and arc work because she's an entitled white b***h.
both movies are unironically very good
Here's one of the scenes in Inland Empire that follow that same sorta thing. Hits like a truck.
tl;dr. Stop wanting adaptations of everything you watch/read. Those things ALWAYS turn out worse than the source material. You'll never be satisfied with an adaptation even if they choose your meme "/ourguy/" actors and if you spam this shitty board's catalog saying kino/based/etc. I hate you
>Stop wanting adaptations of everything you watch/read.
Speaking of which, i remember some guy spammed "Perfect Blue should've been live action" threads here. It looked like the spam stopped.
The Kon movie is an adaptation from a novel. But I feel that it'd be able to be translated extremely easily and effectively into a live-action movie. In that Inland Empire screen I posted a few posts up, the best part of that scene is Laura Dern's reaction; that's something that for obvious reasons wasn't able to be done in the animated Perfect Blue.
You should. If you're not a big anime guy just bear through all the parts that seem weird or moronic. The movie's worth getting invested in.
Wrong board
I've had this sitting on my computer for over 2 years at this point. Maybe I should finally watch it.
>anime
>not about cute little girls
who gives a frick?
Good movie, but the ending is moronic. I don't know why so many japs can't stick the landing.
the happy ending feels weird and out of character with the rest of the film, especially since it's so superficial
Aronofsky lifted shots from here in movies like Black Swan.
And Requiem for a Dream
and allegedly the idea he bought the rights is an urban myth