Get Your Reps In: “Perfect Blue” Is Eerily Prescient Anime

What to see at Portland’s repertory theaters.

Perfect Blue (IMDB)
By Chance Solem-Pfeifer

Perfect Blue (1997)

“Prescient” isn’t a strong enough word for what Perfect Blue (1997) predicts about the head-spinning toxicity of online fandom.

From today’s vantage, Satoshi Kon’s debut anime appears almost clairvoyant about the next century’s particular mode of celebrity obsession. Perfect Blue plays Sept. 9 at Clinton Street Theater as part of the now-annual Hanabi Japanese Film Festival.

Perfect Blue centers on a burgeoning pop star, Mima, trying to make the career pivot from singer to dramatic actor. But one stalking fan in particular leads an online charge against that change.

A sense of ownership over Mima’s public persona and private narrative—as seen through nascent online impersonation—begin fracturing her reality, creating a world of De Palma-esque doppelgängers, serial murder, and art becoming indistinguishable from life. Clinton Street Theater, Sept. 9.

Also Playing:

5th Avenue: Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Sept. 6–8. Academy: Almost Famous (2000), Sept. 6–12. Blow-Up (1966), Sept. 6-12. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Sept. 6–12. Cinema 21: The Killing (1956), Sept. 7. Harold and Maude (1971), Sept. 8. First Cow (2020), Sept. 10. Cinemagic: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Sept. 5. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Sept. 5. Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills (1996) on VHS, Sept. 6. Beauty and the Beast (1991), Sept. 8. Clinton: Like Father, Like Son (2013), Sept. 5. Witches of Eastwick (1987), Sept. 6. Panda! Go Panda! (1972), Sept. 7. Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), Sept. 7. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Sept. 7. Black Rain (1989), Sept. 8. Perfect Days (2023), Sept. 8. Drive My Car (2022), Sept. 10. Hollywood: The Swimmer (1968), Sept. 7 and 8. Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979), Sept. 7. Moulin Rouge (2001), Sept. 8. The Secret Life of Plants (1979), Sept. 9. Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976), Sept. 10. Tomorrow: Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020), Sept. 5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Sept. 6. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Sept. 7. Edwards Scissorhands (1990), Sept. 7.

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