Skip to main content

Animation - Perfect Blue | Pâfekuto burû [JP] (1997)

 

My views

Plot

Mima Kirigoe decides to leave the J-pop idol group she is a member of, CHAM!, to become a full-time actress. Many of her fans are dismayed by her change from a clean-cut image, particularly an obsessive fan Me-Mania, who begins stalking her. Following directions from a fan letter, Mima discovers a website called "Mima's Room" comprising public diary entries written from her perspective, recording her her daily life and private thoughts in great detail. She confides in her manager, former pop idol Rumi Hidaka, about the site, but Rumi advises her to ignore it.

Mima lands a minor role in television detective drama Double Bind; however, her agent, Tadokoro lobbies the producers of Double Bind, and succeeds in securing Mima a larger part, though her new role requires her to film a rape scene. Despite Rumi's objections, Mima accepts the role, although filming the scene proves acutely distressing. Between the ongoing stresses of filming Double Bind, her lingering regret over leaving CHAM!, and the paranoia she experiences from being stalked, Mima begins to suffer from psychosis. She especially struggles to distinguish real life from her acting pursuits, and is repeatedly visited by an apparition of her former idol self, who claims itself to be "the real Mima".

A string of murders is committed, all against people who have been involved in Mima's acting career in some respect. Mima finds evidence in her closet suggesting her to be the prime suspect. Her increasing mental instability makes her doubt her own memories and innocence, as she vaguely recalls brutally murdering photographer Murano after he implored her to allow him to take naked photos of her. Mima manages to finish shooting Double Bind, the final scene of which reveals that her character killed and assumed the identity of her sister due to trauma-induced dissociative identity disorder. After the filming staff have left the studio, Me-Mania, acting on e-mailed instructions from "the real Mima" to "eliminate the impostor", corners Mima and attempts to rape and kill her, but Mima bludgeons him to death with a hammer and escapes. Later, Me-Mania is murdered by "the real Mima" for failing to kill Mima.

Rumi finds Mima backstage and takes her to her home. Mima discovers that Rumi's bedroom is an exact replica of her own, and realizes that Rumi is the one behind "Mima's Room", the serial murders, and the döppelganger that manipulated Me-Mania. Displeased by Mima retiring from the idol industry, Rumi developed an alternate personality of the "real Mima," now seeking to destroy and replace her in order to redeem her image. Rumi pursues Mima through the city, culminating in Mima accidentally incapacitating Rumi with a mirror shard during a struggle. Rumi stumbles into the street and into the path of an oncoming truck; hallucinating the headlights as stage lights, she smiles and poses instead of moving out of the way, but Mima manages to save her from being run over at the last moment.

Some time later, Mima, now a well-known actress, visits Rumi in a mental institution. Rumi's doctor says Rumi still believes she is a pop idol most of the time. Mima says she has a lot from her experiences with Rumi. As Mima leaves the hospital, she overhears two nurses, who recognize her but conclude that she must just be a lookalike, as the real Mima Kirigoe would have no reason to visit a mental institution. As Mima enters her car, she smiles at herself in the rear-view mirror before declaring, "No, I'm the real thing."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IT - Which Is Faster: find | cpio -pdvm OR rsync?

To determine which is faster between find | cpio -pdvm and rsync for copying a large directory tree locally, we need to consider several factors: the nature of the operation, the tools' design, the system environment, and the specific use case. Let’s break this down based on the information provided in the web results and general knowledge about these tools. Overview of the Tools find | cpio -pdvm : find : Recursively lists all files and directories in a given path. cpio : A tool for copying files into or out of a cpio or tar archive. In this case, with the -pdvm options: -p : Pass-through mode (copy files from one directory tree to another). -d : Create directories as needed. -v : Verbose mod...

IT - Troubleshooting Kodi DLNA Visibility Issues After Windows Updates: A Deep Dive Into Conflicts, Fixes, and Lessons Learned

Title: Troubleshooting Kodi DLNA Visibility Issues After Windows Updates: A Deep Dive Into Conflicts, Fixes, and Lessons Learned Subtitle: How I Diagnosed and Solved Intermittent Kodi Visibility Problems on a Samsung Smart TV After Windows OS Updates and Media Server Conflicts Introduction Home media streaming should be seamless, but anyone who has integrated Kodi into a smart home setup knows that stability isn't always guaranteed. Recently, I encountered a frustrating issue: Kodi, running perfectly on my Windows 10 Pro desktop, suddenly became invisible to my Samsung Smart TV via DLNA. The journey to resolve this seemingly simple visibility issue turned into a deep technical rabbit hole involving Windows Media Server, Universal Media Server, Jellyfin, NordVPN, and the very internals o... The System Setup Before diving into the problem, it's essential to understand my hardware and software setup: Operating System: Windows 10 Pro (build 2009) Media Server: Kodi (...

Movie - The Wizard of Oz (1939)

  My views Plot In rural  Kansas ,  Dorothy Gale  lives on a farm owned by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, and wishes she could be somewhere else. Dorothy's neighbor, Almira Gulch, who had been bitten by Dorothy's dog, Toto, obtains a sheriff's order authorizing her to seize Toto. Toto escapes and returns to Dorothy, who runs away to protect him. Professor Marvel, a charlatan fortune-teller, convinces Dorothy that Em is heartbroken, which prompts Dorothy to return home. She returns just as a  tornado  approaches the farm. Unable to get into the locked storm cellar, Dorothy takes cover in the farmhouse and is knocked unconscious. She seemingly awakens to find the house moving through the air, with her and Toto still inside it. The house comes down in an unknown land, and Dorothy is greeted by a good witch named  Glinda , who floats down in a bubble and explains that Dorothy has landed in Munchkinland in the  Land of Oz , and that the Munchkins are cel...