Perfect blue and Blackswan : Artistry and adulthood

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁? 

An artist transcending into madness. 

Perfect blue is a story of Mima, a Japanese pop idol who decides to leave her singing career for acting. Her inner turmoils and demons constantly question her identity; the innocent idol or the bold actress. 

Black Swan is the story of Nina, a ballet dancer constantly striving for perfection. The perfect white swan, transitioning into the black swan, the seductress, the bold lady. 

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀 

Identity

Self destruction

Sexuality repression and exploitation

Obsession

Paranoia

Illusion

Artistry

Transitioning into adulthood

𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 

Both the films have similar visual representation, direction, cinematography etc. Despite trying to deny any inspiration, director of Black Swan has been accused of drawing direct inspiration from perfect blue. 

The names itself, "mima" and "nina" are testimone to the influence. 

Both the films explores the theme of transitioning to adulthood. 

Black Swan explores Nina's journey from the innocent, naive, ingenue, the sexually repressed young girl to a bold, seductress black swan. 

Perfect blue explores Mima's transition from the idol, catering to parasocial relationship, being and ingenue and constantly fan servicing to defying her fan's expectations by becoming a bold actress. 

A lot of scenes are similar in Perfect Blue and Black Swan. 

Today we will talk about the differences in Black Swan and Perfect Blue. 

𝚂𝚢𝚖𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖 

Blackswan has three main characters, apart from Nina; her mother, Odile (Mila Kunis) and Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) 

Perfect Blue has three main characters apart from Mima; Rumi, stalker and public. 

Nina's mother, Mrs. Sayers, a controlling and somewhat obsessive mother, represents sexual repression. She, creates several pictures of Nina, obsessively, binding her from growing up. 

Mima's stalker too, is symbolistic of sexual repression and societal expectations. Someone who sees Mima and the perfect ingenue idol, incapable of accepting her sexuality. 

Nina's friend-enemy, Odile can be symbolic of puberty, of rebellion and growing free of the bounds put up by societal repression (her mother). She rebels her mother, for the first time because of Odile but after few revelations, it wasn't Odile, it was her paranoia, herself who rebelled against her mother. We do have a love hate relationship with puberty, with growing up into womanhood and that is well represented through the various interactions of Nina and Odile. 

Similarly, Rumi is Mima's manager, her friend and someone who looks upto Mima. She is symbol of change in Mima's life, just like Nina. 

Both the movies feature Rumi and Odile as the good girl gone bad or bad girl gone good. But the difference between Blackswan and Perfect blue lies in these two characters. 

The managers in perfect blue are symbolic of sexual exploitation, and the ballet instructor Thomas Leroy is also symbolic of sexual exploitation. They all exploit and harass the respective characters into madness. 

𝙍𝙪𝙢𝙞 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙊𝙙𝙞𝙡𝙚 

Rumi occurs as a sweet soul, who loves Mima, who adores her and looks upto her. 

As the story progresses, Mima tries to find peace in Rumi and Rumi consoles Mima. 

At the end, it turns out that the true perpetuater of all the murders was Rumi not Mima as she wanted to become Mima but Mima became someone else. 

Odile, occurs as the perfect black swan, who can be a threat to Nina but Nina secures her position as the lead. Nina fails to become the black Swan, the seductress that Odile is and she falls into a pit of insecurity. She confides in Odile to break herself from her mother, from the repression but it turns out that Odile never helped her. It was Nina, herself who rebelled her mother. 

At the end, Nina accepts her blackswan, her adulthood as she fades into perfection. She's bleeding and it can be symbolic of her death, or the death of her innocence. 

Both the endings are different. The difference is the context. Here's my interpretation of the two stories - 

Nina seemed to have paranoia or schizophrenia, her mother was aware of it, as she instructed Nina to not tear her skin with her nails. Nina's mother wanted to become like Nina (like Rumi) , she wanted to be the lead of swan lake but ended her ballet career after her pregnancy. She thinks that Nina might do the same, destroy her career by transitioning into adulthood, by getting pregnant as a teenager, so she represses and controls Nina. However, she creates an image of a perfect girlchild in her mind, obsessing over the ingenue, the white swan. Her mother gets envious and insecure of Nina becoming whatever she wasn't, of becoming a blackswan as well as white swan. At the end, she does accept the black swan in her as Nina passes one last smile to her before she or her innocence is killed. 

Mima, too had paranoia. She doubts if all the crimes happening against the one who wronged her, are done by her or not. She's constantly loosing herself into a battle of ingenuity and boldness. She isn't sure if she wants to be an adult actress or if people are forcing her to be. 

Rumi wants to be Mima, she wants to be the innocent idol Mima who was killed by the bold actress Mima. Rumi commits all those crimes to seek justice for the old Mima, for the innocence that was lost. Rumi blames Mima and tries to kill her, by the end of the movie as she believes that she ruined the innocent Mima that she idolised. 

However, Rumi has mental illness, she is supportive of Mima except for few maniac episodes. 

In the end, Mima greets the healing Rumi in an asylum who still considers herself the old innocent Mima. Basically, Mima looks back at her old self, her ingenue self and finally winks at the mirror, accepting the new her, the adulthood. 

Perfect Blue is far more graphic, symbolic and deep than Black Swan. If anybody wants an in depth analysis of Perfect blue, please comment.