Perfect Anime | PERFECT BLUE (1997)

Will the real Mima please stand up?

dir. Kon Satoshi

This psychological thriller anime from Kon Satoshi delves groundhog-day-style into the nature of reality, plumbing the depths of the mind of protagonist Kirigoe Mima aka Mima-Rin, a pop starlet trying to make the difficult transition towards being taken seriously as an actress.  As she and her management navigate the perilous waters of her exploitation-filled debut on a drama flick, Mima becomes the target of a psycho killer triggered by her change in career and the subsequent besmirching of her formerly innocent image. 

Utilizing the gorgeous trappings of the anime medium, graphically gory scenes (icepick stabbings, say) are interspersed with rounds of depressing beauty (the commuter train making its way through the dreary, night skyline of impersonal, overcrowded Tokyo).  There are also moments of shocking sexual violence (an enacted rape scene filmed for the movie foreshadowing an almost "real" rape) and demoralizing nudity (the skin-shots Mima poses for then later regrets).  Also the motif of reflections, most realistically executed, brings added dimensions to the exploration of dissociative disorder and the pliable nature to perception and reality.        

Kon masterfully weaves the tale of mental breakdown, causing viewers to question the nature of the events being depicted.  What part is reality, What is the film, and What is merely a figment of Mima's imagination?  All elements build towards deliberate confusion that works to unsettling effect with the reveal of the killer's identity.

A haunting, J-Pop drenched odyssey, PERFECT BLUE presages Kon's 2006 release PAPRIKA in terms of theme and in the use of mesmerizingly creepy musical compositions, specifically "Virtua Mima" written by Ikumi Masahiro. 

Super cute is the novelty that the World Wide Web presents to the reality of the anime's characters, with websites and browsers being a relatively recent arrival revolutionizing the world of Gopher and Unix protocols.            

Get it while it's up: PERFECT BLUE

Panama Indie-Film Gold | GREED (2013)

Colorful, captivating GREED.

dir. Maria Isabel Burnes

Shot in New York, GREED is a 2:46 short directed by Panamanian-born Maria Isabel Burnes, one of the vanguard of up-and-comers in the fast-expanding indie-film scene just now taking off in the Republic of Panama.  

Burnes' 2nd piece, GREED placed first in the 2013 Honduran COR3 Film Festival in the Central American category while at home she won her category in the Hayah Short Film Festival sponsored by L'Alliance Française for which she'll represent Panama in the upcoming Trés Court International Film Festival.

Her third short SCREWDRIVER, an 80s exploitation film shot in 35mm and 16mm,  is just now in the can and soon to be released.  MI COMANDANTE, Burnes' fourth short done entirely in 35mm and shot on location in Panama has just wrapped production and is slotted for release sometime next year. 

For your viewing pleasure: GREED

Charlie's 1st Talkie Packs a Wallop | THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940 )

"Gesundheit!"

Written, directed, produced, and scored by Charles Chaplin, THE GREAT DICTATOR is a slapstick-filled take on the tragedy of the WWII master-race bombast.  As his first talkie it not only carries such a prescient message, it's a well-established classic in the history of the cinematic arts.

Though the predictable switcheroo set up in the duo-role of dictator/ barber inhabited by Chaplin himself can be seen from miles off, the two-hour long journey through still presents an enjoyable ride. The ever-present Keystone cop stormtroopers, sequences of Chaplin's Bugs Bunny barber shop antics, and Hynkle's iconic world domination dance with the globe-balloon are part and parcel of the genius' mind at work.

The charming Hannah, played rough and tumble by Paulette Goddard, is the idealized, strong-willed counterpoint in the role of romantic interest. Herr Garbitsch (Henry Daniell) and Herring (Billy Gilbert) are the perfect comic foils to Dictator Hynkel's hi-jinks. When fellow dictator Napoloni (Jack Oakie) is added to the mix, all hell breaks loose.

This over-the-top humor--reading very much like golden-age Looney Tunes--allows one to approach the grotesque reality being evoked. All of it serves as an entry point for a real sense of humanity and serves as a climactic build to one of the most heartfelt, moving speeches in the history of movies.

THE GREAT DICTATOR

Sexy Turn-of-the-Century Science | THE SECRET OF NIKOLA TESLA (1980)

I said 'Free Energy!'

dir. Krsto Papić


A cryptic 1980s film of exquisite period costuming and driven by strong characterizations, TAJNE NIKOLE TESLE (THE SECRET OF NIKOLA TESLA) comes to us out of space and out of time from the former Yugoslavia.  

Starring the smart Petar Božović as Tesla, the film adroitly jump-cuts through highly dramatized stages of the inventor's life, covering the quiet, contemplative youth he spent in Lika to his immigration Stateside seeking work with Thomas Edison (Dennis Patrick), and his later associations with George Westinghouse (Strother Martin) and JP Morgan (Orson Wells), ending where the film begins, with the lone genius in his solitary New York City hotel room where he languishes in obscurity, a literal shadow of his former self. 

Theatrics aside, a lot is done right here, like the sweet relationship between Tesla and the gorgeous but married Catherine Johnson (Oja Kodar -Well's real life companion in these, his later years).  A poignant complement is served up in Tesla's relationship with his mother (Ana Karic), illustrative of his early childhood, providing clues to the unplowed depths of his emotional life as an adult.  Though readable as overwrought, her death in his arms is a moment of cinematic poetry.  Inclusion of notable celebrities to Tesla's various demonstrations like Mark Twain and Enrico Caruso are added points of joy.   

Well-emphasized is the enmity betwixt him and Edison and their classic battle over AC and DC technologies.  The contrast between the two highlights Tesla's detached coolness of character. 

Creepy references of Tesla's talking to ghosts--allusions to his spirit box--and the time he received mysterious signals from space (for which he was publicly ridiculed for) help flesh out other side of the elegant man of science, known for obsessive-compulsive tendencies also explored in the film.

His lack of concern with money and pure-hearted motivation for benefitting the the whole of humanity paint Tesla as rather saintly.  Clearly, the purpose of the film is not to be historically accurate in all respects, but to draw inferences of how history might have turned out differently had the men of power been more enlightened in this crucial era of the industrial revolution. 

Cars on an 1980s Los Angeles freeway tell the rest of the tale, with their smog-filled, air-clogged vistas, prognostications of the fear in Tesla's eyes when he hears pronouncements of Einstein's theories giving rise to atomic sources of energy; what the visionary "discoverer" saw as dooming our species' fate.

Watch THE SECRET OF NIKOLA TESLA here: