Satoshi Kon: The Director You Didn’t Know Was Your Favorite
Unless you are an avid lover of Japanese animation, there is a chance that you have not heard of Japanese director and animator Satoshi Kon. Who you definitely have heard of, however, are the filmmakers that have been inspired by his legacy and films. Big names like Guillermo del Toro and Darren Aronofsky have cited the legendary filmmaker as major influences in their work, and many other directors pull influence from Kon’s work even if they do not admit to it. The late Satoshi Kon, who died of pancreatic cancer at the young age of 46 in 2010, has left a mark on young and old, Japanese and foreign, filmmakers alike because of his impeccable way of seamlessly stirring our perception of reality.
Like many prolific Japanese animators, Satoshi Kon made his start as a manga artist and then graduated to working on various anime productions. In 1997, Kon made his directorial debut with the spellbinding Perfect Blue. The film centers around a J-pop singer, Mima, transitioning into being a serious actress, and the downfalls that occur as a result. Stalked by an obsessed fan, Mima begins to lose her grip on reality as the people she works with are mysteriously murdered. As the film progresses, Mima does not know what is in her real life, what is in the television show she is acting in, and what she is hallucinating. Neither do we, as Kon experimentally transitions between scenes so that we do not know when one scene ends and the other begins. Perfect Blue is one of the most haunting and terrifying movies I have ever watched, and has since been named one of the greatest animated films of all time.
After Perfect Blue, Kon wrote and directed several other works, including Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfather. In 2006, he created his final feature film, Paprika. Like Perfect Blue, Kon manipulates our sense of reality, but after years of experience he has cultivated his craft and matured as a filmmaker. Paprika is set in a world where people’s dreams have their own universe that scientists are learning how to navigate and warp. An unknown force starts to terrorize people’s dreams, forcing them to be trapped in the dream world, creating empty shells of their bodies. Like Perfect Blue, watching Paprika means watching with your heart pounding the entire time as you try to navigate the blurring of fiction and reality.
Most agree that Perfect Blue and Paprika are Satoshi Kon’s best works. It’s a logical conclusion when you look at their legacies. Darren Aronofksy, who could be considered the contemporary master of psychological mindbenders, has cited his film Requiem for a Dream as an homage to Perfect Blue. He referenced the shot choices as well as certain scenes from Kon’s movie, in addition to the theme of delusion. His more famous film, Black Swan, is also very similar to Perfect Blue, despite Aronosky’s denial that it was an influence. Black Swan’s Nina and Perfect Blue’s Mima both suffer from delusions that grant the audience a sensory mixture of reality and delusion. Additionally, Christopher Nolan’s Inception drew many comparisons to Kon’s Paprika. The alternate reality of the dream world and the terrorists trying to control it are the core storylines of both movies.
Over a decade has passed since Satoshi Kon’s untimely death. It is heartbreaking to think what might have been if Kon did not pass away- what films he would have made and what influence he would have continued to give. As with all artists, our art outlives us. But his lasting legacy is clear not only because his films are still being watched and loved, but his influence on current and new filmmakers remains strong. Thankfully, we are still able to be swept away into Kon’s hypnotic worlds through his incredible films, where he lives on.
Cover Art by AnimationMagazine. Edited by Katrina Kwok.
