Sadayuki Murai · Film

Millennium Actress

Satoshi Kon · 2001

Millennium Actress frames a documentary crew's interview with a reclusive retired film star as the occasion for her life story, then dissolves the line between her memories and the film roles she played until the two run as one continuous narrative. Satoshi Kon's first original film after Perfect Blue, made at Madhouse on one of the lowest budgets recorded for a Japanese animated feature, it won the Animation Kobe award and holds a 93% critical score despite a tiny US theatrical release.

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Perfect Blue

Satoshi Kon · 1997

Perfect Blue follows Mima Kirigoe, a retiring pop idol turned actress, as an obsessive fan's stalking and a string of murders around her erode her ability to distinguish memory from fabrication. Satoshi Kon directed his first feature from Sadayuki Murai's screenplay, reworking an inherited splatter-horror premise into a study of the victim's collapsing perspective rather than the stalker's psychology. Made on a budget of roughly $830,000, it under-performed commercially before building a lasting reputation as one of animation's most influential psychological thrillers, cited as an inspiration by Darren Aronofsky.