‘Perfect Blue’ & Film-Bodies as ‘perception and expression in motion’ (Essay)

Jennifer M. Barker’s phenomenological analysis of cinema in ​The Tactile Eye​ (2009) set a precedent in the field of film-philosophy regarding the codependent, ‘tactile’ relationship between film and its viewers. The phenomenological approach, inherited from the philosophical works of Husserl “as a new way [of studying] the experiences of thinking and knowing” (Moran, 2002, p. 1), when applied to cinema helps to understand its existence and meaning because film greatly illustrates the merging of mind and body (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). Therefore, film is “an expression of experience by experience” (Sobchack, 1992, p. 3). This essay will analyse cinematic perception and expression, Barker’s film-bodies and the way they affect audiences, whilst illustrating its arguments with examples from ​Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997) because animation is “cinema ​par excellence​” since animated cinema’s characteristics are “intensified” because of their process of production (Barker, 2009, p. 137). Perfect Blue​ is an animated Japanese thriller about Mima, a pop idol who leaves her singing career in hopes of becoming a successful actress. She is slowly driven to insanity by a stalker (Uchida), the fame and pressure of the film industry and by the ghost of her idol self. ​Perfect Blue​ ​mixes dreams, films and reality to confuse the viewer until the end, when Mima’s manager (Rumi) is exposed as her tormentor. To analyse ​Perfect Blue​, this essay will adhere to Loriguillo-López’s analytical scene numbering system (2020, p. 81).

Film is described as “perception and expression in motion” because cinema is both “a subject [and] an object for experience” (Barker, 2009, p. 8), therefore film exists as (a) seeing and seen embodied state in the world (Sobchack, 1992; 2004). Merleau-Ponty also maintained “that all perception is embodied perception” because perception cannot be independent of the body that allows it or the societal structures that shape it (1962; cited in Barker, 2009, p. 17). Thus, Barker’s (and therefore this essay’s) understanding of cinema is shaped by the codependency of perceiving and expressing.

Perceiving is “an active process” (Beijnon, 2017, p. 4) of experiencing “the world’s significance” (Sobchack, 1992; Barker, 2009, p. 8). Modern art has partly rehabilitated perception and, by extent, the world through the way we perceive it since “the work of art resembles the object of perception” (Merleau-Ponty, 2004, p. 94). Thus, our perception depends on environmental cues and the structures that guide it (Beijnon, 2017). In the words of Münsterberg, “the uniqueness of cinema [...] lies in the way it offers the possibility to represent our mental perception and organisation of [...] the world we live in” (1916; cited in Beijnon, 2017, p. 1).

However, expressing means “to signify” (Sobchack, 1992; Barker, 2009, p. 8). A film’s expressive experience is attributed to the subjective viewer and to “fundamental visual, spatial, and affective features [...] as tied to perceptual conditions of the film medium and its technology” (Sobchack, 1992; cited in Yacavone, 2016, p. 160). Moreover, recent developments in cinematic technology allow for “more perceptive and expressive activity in its relation to an envisioned world, [...] and to other visionary, viewing and visible subjects” (Sobchack, 1992, p. 249), which proves that cinema is moving towards an audience-focused study of expression and its affects.

The combination of perception and expression creates the experience of cinema. “Before and perhaps beyond being a body of memory, then, cinema is [...] an illusory body which, as theoretical reflection shows, the spectator in his lived experience has always already embraced” (Voss, 2011, p. 137). By actively perceiving what the film is expressing, the viewer partakes in the experience, which affects them through environmental or personal cues and the film-body (Voss, 2011, p. 137). Sobchack coined the term “cinesthetic body” to create a third agent which encompasses the screen and the viewer and their reciprocal relationship because the experience necessitates both of them to occur (2004, p. 56). Voss infers that “the spectator [...] ‘loans’ a three-dimensional body to the screen and thus flips the second dimension of the film event over into the third dimension of the sensing body” (2011, p. 145). Thus the viewer further engages and connects with the cinematic experience by surrogating their body to it (Voss, 2011), enhancing the experience’s affects internally and externally.

Arguably, film-bodies constitute a vital part of the cinematic experience and thus film theory’s focus “on the machinery of the film’s vision” undermines our understanding of the film itself (Sobchack, 1992, p. 167). Instead, cinema perceives/expresses in an embodied fashion, which ‘grants’ the film a body of its own, resulting in cinematic expression for the spectator and for the film itself (Sochack, 1992, p. 168): this is arguably the film’s ​raison d’être (​ its reason for existing) to begin with. However, this cinematic body is not to be confused with an anthropomorphic one (Barker, 2009), despite them sharing similar perceptual experiences (Sobchack, 1992), because it only expresses through cinematographic means such as camerawork or editing (Barker, 2009). However, the film’s “instrumentality” should not be limited to “a discussion of mere mechanisms” (Sobchack, 1992, p. 166), because the film-body is not supposed to exclusively represent the technical apparatus that created it.

Perfect Blue’​ s film-body is characterised by Kon’s directorial style and remarkable cinematography, which is said to have also inspired both ​Black Swan​ (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) and ​Requiem for a Dream​ (Darren Aronofsky, 2000). Its fast-paced editing confuses the spectator by skipping time and increasingly blurring the lines between reality and dreams (Loriguillo-López, 2020). The film’s pace, sound design and shot length also shape the tensest scenes, such as Uchida’s attempted rape (scene 60). Ultimately, the ensemble of Perfect Blue’​ s cinematography, look, style and narrative constitutes its unusual, insidious film-body, the main agent within the dynamic, interactive experience between film and spectator.

Film-bodies are formed of ‘skin, musculature and viscera’ (Barker, 2009). A film’s skin “is a [surface-level] meeting place for exchange because it connects the inside with the outside, the self with the other” and constantly perceives the world whilst expressing “its own act of perception [...] by touching [the world]” (Barker, 2009, p. 27). Similarly, human skin perceives cold wind and visibly expresses goosebumps (Barker, 2009). Arguably, a film’s skin (or the screen, celluloid and “all the parts of the apparatus and the cinematic experience that engage in the skin’s activities”) is closest to the spectator (Barker, 2009, p. 29). ​Perfect Blue​’s skin accounts for the overall look and feel of the film as an effect of its production, exemplified by scenes such as Mima’s discovery of ‘Mima’s Room’ (a website Uchida uses to stalk her) and a stalker's harassment via fax (scene 10). After this, Mima stares out her window and straight at the camera/spectator, whilst the camera pans back and the tense music swells until she closes her curtains and says “Who are you?”, making the viewer feel like they are spying on Mima. Arguably, this scene encompasses the film’s overall feel (or skin) because it represents the first visible/tangible experience of something ominous, instilling into the viewer the film’s characteristic experience of insidiousness.

Furthermore, a film’s ‘musculature’ is experienced “on the surface of [spectators’] skins [and] through movement, comportment, and gesture” (Barker, 2009, p. 69), so a combination of both its human performances and the film’s “structure, composition and editing”, which similarly affect the viewer’s body language (Barker, 2009, p. 70). This is reminiscent of the fabled panicked reactions to ​L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ​(Lumière et al., 1895). ​Perfect Blue​’s musculature is shaped by the character’s performances (also within the TV series being produced within the film:​ Double Bind)​ and the film’s editing, for example, when Mima starts confusing dreams and reality and seeing the ghost of her past (scenes 46 to 68). This section is characterised by recurring sequences in which Mima wakes in her apartment, after a fade to white; the production of ​Double Bind​; the gruesome murders of people around her; and by the ghost of herself. This surreal confusion is also experienced by the viewer, who (like Mima) begins to question the veracity of her senses, and therefore, her perception.

The ‘viscera’, or “the depths of the film’s and viewer’s body”, express “the tenuous connection between the film’s and viewer’s muscular bodies” (Barker, 2009, p. 120). A spectator’s internal organs express and perceive as much as their skin and musculature do, through internal “activities and responses”, like a fast pulse or rhythmic breathing, which denote desire, anticipation, relief or fear (Barker, 2009, p. 120). Thus, Barker derives that a film’s viscera is its rhythm, expressed through diegesis, editing, shot length and pace (2009). Perfect Blue’​ s viscera is omnipresent during its crucial moments, such as the filmed rape scene for ​Double Bind​ (scenes 23 to 26) and Uchida’s attack (scene 60). During both of these, Perfect Blue​ expresses tenseness by employing editing, camerawork and sound design, which come together to make the viewer experience overwhelming disgust and fear. However, the contrast between the action in both the ‘fake’ and ‘real’ rape scenes (and the implied foreshadowing) make the latter all the more viscerally horrifying, characterising the corporeal experience this film offers.

Furthermore, a film’s expressivity and body stimulate certain ‘feelings’ in the viewer. These arise from the space “between the embodied psychological world [of cinema] and the exterior material environment [which is] ‘felt’ rather subjectively” (Münsterberg, 1999; cited in Singh, 2014, p. 11). Also, there are three different kinds of feeling, which differentiate “in the ways that we encounter and experience them”: emotions, affects and the physical and physiological (Singh, 2014, p. 19). Firstly, emotions are represented by “images designed to evoke a feeling-response”, or narrative devices, on-screen emotional cues and psychological images (Singh, 2014, p. 29). A relevant example of this in ​Perfect Blue​ is the website ‘Mima’s Room’, which is both a catalyst for narrative development and an object that provokes both Mima’s and the audience’s amusement at first, but quickly becomes fear and paranoia, consequently representing Mima’s downfall. To the modern viewer, Mima’s room makes the experience all the more ominous by demonising a familiar commodity: the Internet.

An affect is a tonality of feeling which emerges through a viewer’s consciousness, “where the embodied state of a subject” is vital to its perception, cinematically speaking (Singh, 2014, p. 20). In ​Perfect Blue,​ the main affect is the insidious uneasiness that subtly and unconsciously emerges at the beginning, after the fax scene (10), and then quickly escalates. This is also tangible in scene 16 when Mima has a panic attack on the train because she knows she is being stalked, and the cinematography (camera work, angles and editing) are designed to make the viewer panic too. At this point of the experience, the viewer empathises with Mima over her miserable state, which evolves into a more sinister feeling when the spectator notices that Mima’s issue is more complex than a simple stalker.

Finally, a physical/physiological feeling is a physical response in reaction to external stimuli through a spectator’s bodily responses, their perceptual apparatus and their senses (Singh, 2014). Any viewer would have a strong response to ​Perfect Blue’​ s climax, when Rumi is revealed as Mima’s persecutor and she chases Mima into the streets to murder her (scene 67). After they struggle (scene 68) and Mima regains her grasp on reality, Rumi is impaled by a piece of glass and then stumbles onto the road. Mima’s ghost (through Rumi) then turns to stare at Mima, smiles through the blood and then stands in a truck’s way to be run over. The shot of her standing in front of said truck simulates her on stage, because of the soaring sound of an imaginary audience, the truck’s headlights (which replicate stage lighting) and by Rumi’s bow. A viewer’s heartbeat would most assuredly increase here, whilst they hold their breath before the impending crash. This scene forces the viewer to physically prepare for impact, as they momentarily become Rumi during the height of her madness, standing in front of the truck, and then breathe out in relief when Mima pushes her out of the way.

In conclusion, film is both “perception and expression in motion” because the film-body codependently engages with the viewer’s own through its skin, musculature and viscera (Barker, 2009, p. 8) therefore causing affects, emotions and physical responses (Singh, 2014). The encounter’s reciprocal nature is due to both actions being codependent, for one cannot perceive unless someone else is expressing and vice-versa (Sobchack, 1992). This constitutes the cinematic experience, whereby “somewhat incidental moments seem to push through the screen”, making the experience meaningful (Epstein, 1978; cited in Singh, 2014, p. 33), which develops our consciousness (Charlebois, 2008, p. 125). The experience is arguably shaped by the film-body in question, especially by its cinematography (Barker, 2009). Animation is thus the perfect example to explore the connection between “the body and cinema” (Barker, 2009, p. 136), and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue serves as the ideal case study. Ultimately, the experience offered by Perfect Blue implies a general ominous, visceral feeling that heavily complements the confusion between imagination and reality, making the viewer doubt the reliability of their senses. Perfect Blue’s narrative is traumatic and "sadomasochistic" (Napier, 2006, p. 25), and its cinematographic is designed to insidiously creep under the viewers’ skin and discompose them with a wide range of both mental and physical stimuli. Thus, Perfect Blue's film-body engages with its viewer in a viscerally "disturbing" way (Schindel, 2017) and offers "an experience like no other" (Garner, 2018).