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Kon added the sub-story about the TV show “Double Bind” to the original novel on which his film was based. Why do you think he did this? What is gained by this addition?
If I hear the word “cut!” again …. but yes, I am trying to wrap my head around all of this and will respond at a later time. I just wanted to ponder the questions
I first assumed that Kon was using ‘Double Bind’ as an allusion to Mima’s real life. But actually it was another hint that tells us maybe Mima is murdering people in her other persona. This addition further confuses us, dragging us into Mima’s media world. I think another reason for adding Double Bind is to reassure us that Mima might be maintaining several personae at the same time. Those are the only two possible reasons I can come up with after seeing Perfect Blue for the first time.
I think Double Bind serves as additional commentary and cues on what is going on in Perfect Blue, which is for the most part filmed in a limited third-person point of view.
First, the title of the drama, “Double Blind,” reveals more clearly how Mima is struggling between her idol and actress identities, that accepting one means rejecting the other and is a lose-lose situation.
There were also other parallels that could be made. In the end of Double Blind, the reason for Mima’s character’s actions was to salvage the hearts of others. In the same way, I think Rumi was trying to salvage Mima’s pop Idol identity. Rumi, like the murderer in the drama, wore Mima’s “skin” (costume) and even before the climax, she was always disappointed that Mima gave up on being an idol.
Why do you think he did this? What is gained by this addition?
Quite superficially, by creating this sub-story that somewhat metaphysically parallels the plot of Perfect Blue, Kon is able to converge reality and fantasy at the climax of the film. With this addition, the viewer begins to question what is reality and what is simply the TV show, but ultimately, when the viewer questions Mima’s being, they become wrapped up in the psychotic breakdown that befalls the ex-pop idol. With his use of framing, Kon creates illusion solely by not allowing the viewer to know quite what is happening, is it the TV show? Or is it her life? This comes to a breaking point when the two become one, and what happens in Double Bind is simultaneous with Mima’s reality.Simply put, by adding this frame story, Kon adds more depth to the illusion of the show, and the psychological confusion of Mima’s mind.
Another point to be made, is that while the viewer can only see reality through Mima’s disillusioned frame of view, they are able to see Double Bind from an omniscient scale, thus making the viewer question the trust they are putting in Mima’s reality; has she truly become a multi-persona’d murderer?
I think Double Bind added an element of mystery to the film. There were some scenes that sort of acted like a red herring to the mystery in the actual film. For example, there would be a scene that would be really relevant to the actual storyline; like when the doctor was asking Mima questions, and the director would yell “Cut!” It was very off putting and made your head spin around in circles. Also when Mima first killed Me-Mania and the director yelled “Cut!” It was confusing and threw you off about who was really dead and alive. Double Bind kept you on your toes the whole film; if you stopped paying attention for even a 10 seconds, you would get completely lost in the film for a little bit.
I think Kon’s purpose for wanting to add “Double Bind” was just so he could use it to play with our minds again. However, it did vastly enhance the experience of watching the film. It captivated you, creating the feeling that if you took your eyes off the screen, you would become completely lost in what was happening. This would not have been the case if Kon stuck to the narrative of the original novel that he found to be so boring. It also largely removed the easy foreshadowing factor that such straightforward works have. It makes you try to think through all of the possible events that could occur next, each with an equally likely chance of occurring, instead of just effortlessly guessing what is about to happen. This, coupled with the wonderful reactions of the audience, made all the crazy twists kind of enjoyable in a way, if you look past the violent and disturbing scenes.
I believe Kon utilized “Double Bind” as a way to further force us to question how we define what is reality and what is not, a theme that is pushed throughout the film. Although we know that the characters within the show are just actors, and the events within the show are just scenes, the “reality” of “Double Bind” would constantly spill over into the real world, whether it be through the parallels between events in Mima’s life and the scenes in the show, or in the psychological impact that supposedly fictional scenes would have on the people that saw them. For example, for Mima, Rumi, and Mima’s stalker, the rape scene would have a deep emotional impact, as if Mima had been “dirtied,” although the only thing that was actually tarnished was Mima’s public image. Even Tadokoro, who was always the first to point out that the rape scene was not real, was emotionally affected by the scene, visibly horrified by what he made Mima go through. Kon continually pushes this spillover between reality and fiction, purposefully splicing the scenes in the show and events in reality with jump cuts, conveying to the viewer the sense of emotional confusion and distortion that Mima was experiencing. In one especially mind-numbing scene, one of the stars of “Double Bind” is shown diagnosing Mima with having multiple-personality disorder, saying the show “Double Bind” and the scenes within it were actual events, the show only being a manifestation of Mima’s brain trying to protect her from her memories. I can not honestly imagine this anime without “Double Bind” in it, as Kon’s use of jump cuts contrasting the show and Mima’s life is instrumental in conveying to the viewer Mima’s growing mental confusion and her warped sense of reality.
Kon added the addition of the show Double Bind in order to further confuse and suck in the reader. By adding in the show and making it similar to the events occurring in Mima’s life, it mixes reality and fiction. This has a strong effect on the viewer. The viewer is never sure what is real and what is part of the show. This is something that Kon enjoys doing. It draws the viewer in, causing them to constantly wonder whether or not what is occurring is real. Additionally, it serves to prove that although something is occurring in a tv show or movie, it can also happen in real life.
The TV show functions as a parallel to the main storyline, a distraction, and an irony.
“Double Bind” exhibits some elements that link both the Mima’s life and the plot of the TV show: exemplified by the discussion of illusion and reality, which alludes to the main theme of the movie as a whole. The TV show also draws sorts of connections between psychiatric illness and murdering, foreshadowing the deaths of producers, the screenwriter and Me-mania.By inserting the TV show, Kon intentionally tempts people to connect the TV series with the major plot. The protagonists in both the movie and the TV series are Mima, and Mima in two scenarios both suffer from the confusion of illusion and reality. The ending of the TV series, which indicates that Mima in the TV show has multiple personalities, makes people believe that Mima in reality (the movie) also suffers from this mental syndrome, and her another personality overpowers her true self and commits murdering.
However, “Double Bind” is possessed sarcastic purposes in the second half of the movie. In the TV show, the female detective (I forgot her name…) tells Mima that “there is no way illusions can come to life.” Ironically, the illusions really come to life, and are possessed on others: Rumi and Me-mania internalize the identity of pop-idol Mima, and substitute their own by Mima’s identity.
Btw, I think “Double Bind” is also the allusion to “the Silence of the Lamb,” which shares similar context, similar lines and similar plots.
I think the sub-story double bind definitely adds the biggest sense of illusion to the film. By the end of the film I was constantly wondering whether the scenes appearing before me we’re parts of real life or parts of the television drama. Double Bind also makes for some of the best transitions in the film. Every time that a scene would play that seemed like it was real life but was suddenly revealed it was Double Bind would leave the class in such confusion. I think the parallel between the two worlds is also important in creating a sense of illusion in the real world. This is especially prevalent in the scene where Mima was murdering the photographer but her character in Double Bind had also committed a murder in the same exact manner.
The addition of the TV show “Double Bind” serves to blur the lines between reality and illusion. There are scenes where it seems like Mima is speaking her thoughts, then it pans out to show that it is actually a scene from the TV show that she is filming or we hear the director yelling “CUT”. At some point the TV show begins to show parallels to Mima’s life and we are unable to differentiate what is real and what is not. In the TV show, Mima’s character suffers from multiple personality disorder and kills a person. Right after the killing of the photographer, the scene transitions to the detective speaking to Mima stating that she just killed someone. This causes the audience to consider the possibility that it was actually Mima that killed the photographer, and in addition to the other factors we are left in confusion. Through the existence of “Double Bind”, the audience is sucked into the film and must constantly question whether what they see is real, happening in Mima’s mind, or acting.
One thing that everyone has touched on is how Double Bind blends the realms of reality and illusion more heavily, and sucks the viewer more fully into this media and psychological distortion. However, I think at face-value, Double Bind also just makes the story a lot more interesting, by offering a particularly compelling plot to observe as the story occurs. Earlier, Professor Figal mentioned how the addition was quite literally added because Kon and his colleagues found the original “Perfect Blue” novel a bit boring, and added this subplot to change things up. Because of this, I’m somewhat inclined to think that this is the majority of what Double Bind is about; a way to make the story more interesting. When you break down Double Bind outside of the context of the overall narrative, they aren’t all that similar; what confuses the two stories is Kon’s perfect usage of jump-cuts throughout. I think that Double Bind’s story itself is just an interesting story to watch, and see play out.
The show Double Bind provides the interesting element of a show within a show. However the importance of this addition relies on the fact that Double Bind has some eerie parallels to Mima’s real life. These parallels combined with the blurred lines between reality & illusion and Mima’s real self & media self, the show adds yet another “reality” (or another persona) to mix into Mima’s life and another story for the viewers to pick apart. Of course, one of Kon’s goals is to blur reality and illusion for the viewers, and to kind of “play” with our initial perceptions. He definitely accomplishes this, and this extra element enhances the confusion caused by Mima’s mental state and identity struggle.
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