All About Lily Chou-Chou

I don't know why I bother with Hollywood when there are so many rich projects like this hiding in corners. The problem of course is finding them. The most significant benefit I get from writing IMDb comments is that readers lead me to them. That happened in this case.

If you are an ordinary viewer , you probably won't like this. Its yet another dip into high school angst, overly long and structurally a bit too cute.

I think you'll have to train yourself to watch films lucidly, but if you do, this will be quite effective. You will fall into it and really be influenced, much more viscerally than say "There Will be Blood," where there is no path for us to enter the world we watch.

The matter of this concerns teen alienation, particularly through how we/they take things that happen and weave them into whatever simple, grand narrative is available — usually through commercial pathways. Its a simple chord to strike, but one we all know, both from when we were that age, and from how we live now, which is only a half degree separated.

You'll encounter death, teen prostitution, rape. Gang dynamics involving intense humiliation. Clueless adults of course. Sexual drives and identity vacuums of course, but subordinated to the more overwhelming urge to be part of a cosmic story. Usually, we ignore this in film, because sex and role are inherently more cinematic. Less true, but easier to show as true.

Its the multiply nested structure that makes it work. The scenes are presented non- linearly. The overriding narrative is not what we see, but a collection of instant messages exchanged among the characters we see. These evoke the images we see, perhaps not as they happened, but as they are recalled. There's an overarching cosmos that these text messages reference, an abstract, perfect world of ethereal dynamics conveyed through a goddess, a girl singer. The slightest nuance from, the smallest bit of news about, the slightest rumor concerning this singer provides ledges for a life, for a whole gaggle of lives bumping up against each other.

In the center of this thing, you have a radical departure. All of a sudden, instead of the camera anchored in the test messages, we have a camera rooted in reality. Its literally footage from video cameras from the core teen boys as they go on an exotic vacation to Okinawa. Naturally, the four spindly 14-15 year olds are guided by four of the most appealing older girls in memory. Its colorful, jerky. Full of life, a real, embodied life that by its appearance makes all the rest of the thing seem incredibly sad in its artificiality.

Someone knew what they were doing when they put this together. Someone deep and true and of the kind we need more of if we are to make it through. Or do I hang my life on commercially available narrative too?

Heh.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I had the pleasure of seeing this movie alone on a quiet weekday night. I wasn't prepared for the power of this film, and how much it would hurt me and inspire me when i saw it.

The film moves fluidly, and seems like a work of art more than entertainment. As we watch we are shown a side of Japanese youth not often seen in such an honest light. This world is shocking and scary, yet there is a comfort in seeing it in such an honest way. Much of the film is short with a music video quality to it, but it is the careful, intimate direction that keeps this film grounded as it shifts from situation to situation. I will not tell much about the story, since any spoiling of the plot might weaken the effect of the first viewing. I can say that this is truly a rare achievement in film, and it deserves to be seen.

"all about lily chou chou" begins with a series of manually keystroked chat-room-style statements that introduce facts and ideas, mostly related to mythical pop-star "lily chou chou." this sort of cinematic introduction sounds similar to many other computer-age-themed films, but amazingly the keystroke dialogue between several anonymous internet fanatics continues past the credits and runs through almost the entire movie. the nicely-scripted, brilliantly executed text acts as the backbone that beautifully holds together a story that is ultimately about many things, including the fragility of relationships and the personas we use based on them, fanatical envy and love contrasted against blind rage and hate, metamorphosis, and technology versus nature.

although executed in an arguably confusing manner, consisting of many non-chronological vignettes, the film ultimately succeeds in depicting a modern-day story involving the relationship between two early-adolescent japanese boys, their journey through life and school, their changing identities, and their fascination with and "connection" to the strangely popular musician, lily chou chou. visually, the filmmaking complements the ideas perfectly. the camera is often puerile and shaky when showing the boys' ventures and conversations. at one point, a vacation sequence is depicted solely through excited and dizzying amateur videography by the boys themselves, humorous close-ups of accompanying girls' bodies included. during the non-video portions of the film, the colors are beautifully rich, with verdant fields and saturated skies.

the abrupt, but fitting pattern between flowing, dreamlike camerawork, shaky camerawork, textual discourse, and the eerily sensual, fictitious lily chou chou tracks provide a momentum that is both refreshing in its originality but effectively discomforting. by the film's closing the style is not so much regretfully confusing as it is fittingly and fully dramatic, as well as both amazing and beautiful. the film is nothing short of art.

lastly, the film did well to keep free of preaching. with much of what goes on in the world today, filmmakers feel social commentary is an added bonus (or even a main goal) to depicting a narrative. this is not so much a problem until the viewer begins to feel manipulated in a propaganda-like fashion. this film is very much based in a realistic society with realistically harsh and shocking issues and occurrences. however, respectfully, this film does a fine job of depicting its characters and events in a manner that allows for the viewer's empathy without pointing direct fingers or offering direct solutions. incidentally, much of the films drama and marvel comes from this quality.

This is a film that makes you feel more than it makes you think. Combination of poetic images and magnificent music takes you to a new level of emotion. Iwai used emotional space of each characters as well as physical space very well throughout the entire film, it is hard not to make connection with them. This is what the cinema is all about in my humble opinion. Emotions be felt by images and sound.

This is a tale about the lows of a group of high school kids that turn to crime and cyberspace obsession of a pop singer named Lily Chou-Chou.

Writer/director Shunji Iwai film is complex, dark and depressing, with a real intense feel of teenage angst, but truly it's a beautiful film to watch. Shunji Iwai gives us disturbing images of youth's harrowing experiences, in which some characters you feel for, but then after a while you might suddenly despise or the opposite.

With visually stunning and fresh cinematography, it felt like I was watching an arty music video clip at times. The scenery in the film is lush and exquisite, from the contrast of the alluring islands and the rich grass fields to the harshness of the city and school.

A distinguished and unique soundtrack surrounds and overwhelms the film; the songs we hear are those from the fictional pop singer Lily Chou-Chou. The music really added to the beauty and mystique of this film.

Hayato Ichihara as Yûichi Hasumi, a troubled kid that is involve in a crime gang and under an alias, runs the fan club website about Lily Chou-Chou, Shûgo Oshinari as Shusuke Hoshino, once a top student and then suddenly changes and becomes a gang leader and Ayumi Ito as the quiet Yôko Kuno, an outstanding piano player but because of that she is bullied. The performances are brilliantly absorbing and there are no hiccups to say off.

Since the Lily Chou-Chou Website is an important part of the film, we don't actually see anyone in front of the computer screen, except for Yuichi. Whenever there were conversations on her fan's Website, the user-name and their comment would pop up on the screen throughout different scenes in the film or on a black background, though some of the conversations have no resemblance to what's actually happening on screen. At first some of the people were hard to work out who was who on the net, but still I found it quite intriguing.

The time line in the story goes from the present to past and back to the present, where we learn in detail about Yuichi and Shusuke. There are a couple of surprises that you don't see coming and the story might have its flaws- but they didn't seem to bother me, as I was simply engrossed with the dense context of the film.

Like I typed before this is an haunting and intense tale about teenage angst, there is a lot of agonizing imagery and confronting situations like violence, depression, rape, suicide, prostitution and bullying. This gives it such a grim and disturbing undertone, so it might alienate certain viewers.

For me it was a breath-taking and visually satisfying experience.

5/5