Aargh and "Perfect Blue"

[katsaris]

It's so utterly Aaargh when not all major browser care to implement CSS positioning the same way. This currently means for me that I'll probably need to create two different stylesheets for the project I'm currently hired to do and will need do hacks to let different browsers load them differently. Aggravating.

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Saw "Perfect Blue" a couple days ago, which is an anime movie.

It concerns a pop singer, and the actress that she becomes, and the role that she plays. And the roles that play her. And a killer. Or multiple numbers thereof. And it concerns madness and identity and the nature of reality.

But the most accurate description would probably be that it concerns that butterfly that dreamed itself to be Chuang Tze.

I was going to say that it's post-modern (or something like that) but then I decided I'm not sure the term applies, the way I comprehend it. It's more like a metaⁿ-story where the n stands for an unknown quantity. I know which n *I* believe more likely, but opinions may differ.

Contains violence, nudity, and will totally mess up your brains. Go see it. And btw if anyone knows how the title applies to the movie, let me know. I haven't figured that out yet.

Speaking of blueness, I also want to post some commentaries on the "Three Colours" movies ("Blue", "White" and "Red"), which I also saw this past month. Later.

Comments

[homasse.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you saw Perfect Blue! I *adored* that movie. And yeah, it was so very meta, really. Good description. That movie was one of the biggest mindfucks I have ever seen, and that includes Pi (which you should see. I saw it and promptly rejected it and refused to think about it so I woudl be able to sleep, 'cause yeah, MAJOR mindfuck. And no, not anime.)

[katsaris.livejournal.com]

I've seen Pi actually -- same as a number of other little other cool movies (including Fight Club, Ghost in a Shell, Ghost Dog and the Greek Soccer Cup Final between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos :-) the guys at my university showed it one day after shanghaing a lecture room there. :-)

And yeah, I'm totally misusing the term "shanghai". :-)

But it was some years back and I'd like to see Pi again. I may rent it one of these days. *g* Though one moment in it seriously annoyed me for its carelessness -- when the *mathematician* talks about the others having probably already tried each of those trillion-zillion combinations. *No way* -- and he, as a mathematician, should know about the impossibility of such a task.

*Anyway*... any clues about how the title "Perfect Blue" applies to the story? :-)

[skaly.livejournal.com]

This movie needs its own timeline. I was completely lost.

So what else have you been watching?

[homasse.livejournal.com]

*Anyway*... any clues about how the title "Perfect Blue" applies to the story? :-)

Not a clue. I'll have to read the novel it's based on and see if it says something there, because I had been wondering about that myself.

[katsaris.livejournal.com]

It's not so much about timelines I think, as it is about different levels of reality.

When I watched it a second time the movie messed up my brain some more -- mainly because when I had already decided after the first watching what level of narration was the most "real" one, the rewatching made me see several clues that validated the *different* interpretations. Right now there are about three different theories floating on my head about what the story could actually be about.

[skaly.livejournal.com]

Extrapolate! :)

[katsaris.livejournal.com]

Rather late response here... sorry.. Spoilers to follow.

My first guess on what level of reality was the "real one" was actually the most messed up of all, namely that the protagonist was in reality the stripper-girl that had been been raped (meaning the reality was the tv show) imagining that she was Mima. This is the butterfly-dreaming-of-being-a-philosopher theory.

Then I resaw it and because of a couple sentences mentioned in different places, I thought that the "real level" might be the one we see from the beginning, except that the murdering girl is the fantasy/hidden personality of Mima but taking on reality to take demonic possession of Rumi and communicate with Memania and deliberately drive insane and kill Mima. This is the magic/supernatural/fantasy theory.

Lastly there's the all-realism theory, where the singer is simply passing through an identity crisis which is simply enhanced and worsened by the fact that Rumi's suffering from that split personality that worsens the situation by feeding into Mima's delusion. No need for supernatural stuff at all here, only two psychological crises of two different people, bouncing off off each other to lead both women down the pathway to hell. :-)

[skaly.livejournal.com]

I tend to go with the all-realism theory, since that's the one the movie seems to settle on. But your other two theories are way more interesting than that one.