136 w/ Eileen - Perfect Blue (1997) & Black Swan (2010) →

CW: Rape, Child Abuse, Suicide, Mental Illness

Best of 2020 - #4 Perfect Blue; #7 (Tied) Black Swan

Read our afterthoughts for this episode here!

It’s Fractured Identities Week on Pod Sematary! Chris & Kelsey can't tell if this episode is real or not. Does Special Guest Eileen even exist?

The Classic Film: Perfect Blue (1997)
"A retired pop singer turned actress[, Mima's] sense of reality is shaken when she is stalked by an obsessed fan and seemingly a ghost of her past” (IMDb.com). Prolific Japanese writer and artist Satoshi Kon got his directorial film debut with this adaptation of Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel, Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis. He never did anything quite like it again, and even though our next entry owes a lot to it, you'll probably never see anything quite like Perfect Blue anywhere else.

The Modern Film: Black Swan (2010)
"A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake'” (IMDb.com). Based on a pre-existing script about something else, featuring thematic similarities and homages to other movies, and focusing on an all-time classic ballet, Black Swan manages to be wholly unique and fascinating. Intriguingly, it's more fantastical than our animated entry.

Audio Sources:
"Black Swan" produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures, et al.
"Girlfriendklok" (Metalocalypse S01E18) produced by Titmouse & Williams Street
"Perfect Blue" produced by Rex Entertainment, et al.
"Pet Sematary" written by Dee Dee Ramone & Daniel Rey and performed by The Ramones
"Split" produced by Universal Pictures, et al.
"Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" produced by Lucasfilm
"Tune Up #1" (from Rent -- Original Broadway Cast Recording) written by Jonathan Larson and performed by Anthony Rapp & Adam Pascal