Perfect Blue

If Hitchcock had done animation... it might have been something like this. It's unusual to find anime as intelligent and multi-layered as Perfect Blue, even if its ambition sometimes outstrips its execution. It charts the descent of a pop idol-turned-actress into madness. Mima's life spirals out of control, as she is plunged into a nightmare world of murder, exploitation and paranoid delusion.

This is the debut picture from writer-director Satoshi Kon, and it's a decent first effort. It has a lot of the motifs you find in his excellent OAV, Paranoia Agent; the effortless intertwining of fantasy and reality, touches of surrealism and a Lynch-like resistance to easy interpretation, crediting the viewer with the intelligence to solve its puzzles for themselves. Kon also got in early with the phenomenon of cyber-stalking: although it's less extreme and its themes are manifestly different, Cham brings to mind Dessart, and Mima's Room the spooky fan site in Suicide Club.

On the downside, the animation isn't going to blow any minds - it's solid enough, but done without a great deal of panache. The ending (and we're talking literally the last few moments here) is butt-clenchingly cheesy and strangely at odds with the dark mood of the film.

パーフェクトブルー
Dir. Satoshi Kon, 1998