Dark Pop Divas

Perfect Blue

Vox Lux

TW: rape, school shootings

This week we’re exploring the darkness that resides within fame and notoriety—and no, I’m not talking about Armie Hammer’s descent from actor to abuser to probable cannibal to tropical concierge. I’m talking about films that detail the dangers of pop stardom: obsession, idolatry, a loss of privacy, a yearning for agency, and the odd expectation that our favorite celebrities should be more than performers, artists, creators, or mere humans—but gods. I began with a film that I have been dying to see since the Tumblr days of my youth, a film that I cannot escape when I’m scrolling the Instagram film accounts that post the same four films over and over again, a film that has heavily-inspired several films since its release (see Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream), and one that proved the very adult depths that animated films were capable of—Satoshi Kon’s debut 1997 film Perfect Blue. Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller based on Yoshikazu Takeuchi’s novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, and follows Mima Kirigoe: a beloved pop star who leaves her girl group to pursue an acting career, and is subsequently stalked by an obsessive fan. When Mima leaves her girl group CHAM!, she instantly begins working on a Law and Order-esque tv drama, her image drastically changes from clean-cut, innocent pop singer, to a risqué, risk-taking actress, and this greatly upsets one of her biggest fans. First, Mima receives a threatening fax (the most 90s thing that could’ve occurred), then she receives a piece of fan mail that explodes and injures her manager, then she discovers that not only is she being followed, but the person stalking her has created an online diary where they pretend to be her—documenting her every move in her day-to-day life. From the moment this film begins, nothing feels safe. We are introduced to her stalker, but it appears that something far closer to Mima is also haunting her. I hesitate to mention more details about this film, because it is narratively and visually so stunning and so unpredictable, but I’ll just say that Perfect Blue caused me to feel my favorite kind of movie-induced anxiety, the kind that gets your heart racing and your mind wandering. [It didn’t hurt that as I watched this film at home, completely alone, at night, I received a “hello” text from an unknown number. “Hello” you say? Ew??] Perfect Blue is a beautiful nightmare, complete with an impeccable aesthetic and an editing style that made me swoon. I hate to generalize, but most of the anime that I’ve seen has some form of freaky, fucked-up sex stuff in it, so I was unsurprised but nevertheless disturbed when certain scenes occurred in this film. I’ll warn you now there are depictions of rape and violence that are just as distressing as any live-action depiction, but it was a scene relating to fish that upset me the most. (RIP to my baby betta fish Catherine Betta Jones #NeverForget). There are hints of De Palma in this, notes of Hitchcock, yet it is entirely its own thing. The music was legitimately catchy, the terror was legitimately palpable, and while moments of this film drift into “huh?” territory, it was thrilling and overall satisfying to watch. Perfect Blue built suspense in a way that kept me positively glued to the screen, and the same was true of Brady Corbet’s 2018 indie hit: Vox Lux. Vox Lux introduces us to another innocent and endangered pop star imbued with trauma, Celeste, who, after she survives a school shooting and sings at a mass memorial, unexpectedly becomes a teen pop icon when a talent manager (Jude Law) notices her. To have the film be narrated by Willem Dafoe was somehow the perfect choice, as he explains the context of and missing pieces from this treacherous rise to fame in the most chillingly beautiful way. We watch Celeste go from victim, to survivor, to symbol, to pop diva, in such a quick progression that was both exhilarating and disorienting to experience. When we first meet Celeste, it is 1999. She is 13, innocent, unaware, and open to the possibilities of the world that she almost lost. We see the making of a pop star, the relentlessness of rehearsal and preparation, and the hazardous nights that she experiences in each shiny, grimy city. We then cut to Celeste in 2017. Natalie Portman gives a truly astounding performance as the now hardened, but still fairly unaware Celeste. She is messy and emotionally unpredictable, she is raw and uninhibited, and she now has seemingly only strained relationships with the people closest to her. But of course we sympathize with Celeste. We’ve seen her journey, and this critic couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness when Celeste uttered the line: “I want to make pop music because I don’t want people to have to think too hard, I just want them to feel good.” And much like pop music as a whole, this film had far more depth to it than you’d expect. Vox Lux was shown at Austin Film Festival when I was an interning there, and I was kicking myself then for not fighting my way into the screening, and now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to watch it. Vox Lux is a tale of fame and fantasy with absolutely no joy in it, but I still had fun watching it somehow. It doesn’t convey anything particularly new and yet it is entirely unique and inspired. There were a few moments of cinematic-forcedness that felt akin to my (apparently unpopular) fav Nocturnal Animals (the use of string instruments that are so loud you can’t always make out the dialogue during certain monologues, and the general sheen of darkness that covered the whole film). The fashion was fun, the music sounded convincing (perhaps more so than the dancing [which was indeed choreographed by Natalie Portman’s husband Benjamin Millepied]), and each character felt real and their problems felt real. Natalie Portman deserves an Oscar for this and Jude Law deserves jail for that jarringly unsexy (maybe he was going for Brooklyn??) accent. And while I still think Perfect Blue’s songs were a tad catchier, the songs in Vox Lux were just as hit-worthy, and that was a welcome surprise as well. Both of tonight’s films played with the seedy side of fame, the illusion of privacy and control, and the very odd side effects that come with putting a human being on an impossible pedestal. You can’t help but root for these believably troubled characters, and I can’t help but love these unbelievably dark films, despite their many attempts to turn me off. Perfect Blue and Vox Lux were just the right amount of stylized and twisted for this pop music fan, and I appreciate what they both offer to the pantheon of macabre feminist fables. Whether you’re pro-pop or anti-pop or pop-punk, these films are sure to dazzle and disturb.