Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano

This is a mainstream film from celebrated Pink film director Hisayasu Satô. Predictably-- and unfortunately, for his fans-- his move to the mainstream has taken a lot of the edginess off his style. With the extreme and shocking subject matter of his early work, combined with a strong style, thematic depth, and obvious intelligence, Satô was one of the most exciting directors working in Pink film in the '80s and '90s. The general consensus then was that he was "too good" for that low-budget, independent, erotic film genre.

This film deals with the hardcore Adult Video industry, in which Satô worked for a time, though he is known best for work in the softcore Pink industry. But in spite of a couple nude and sex scenes, and one hilarious, but too-brief taste of his Grand Guignolesque "splatter" roots, this film feels "safe". He doesn't portray AV as exceedingly sleazy, but there is some implied criticism of the industry. Given his own work in the field, and the gleeful bouts of gore, violence and perversion in which Satô indulged in his early Pink glory days, this seems surprising. For example we are supposed to be shocked that Lulu has been hired to perform in a rape scene, yet a survey of Satô's own filmography will show multiple rapes, mutilations, bestiality, autocannibalism... you name it...

The cast, from the major roles to the minor, is quite good. Norie Yasui is very cute, and competently carries the split-personality lead role-- the withdrawn Junko, and the extroverted, bubbly "Lulu". "Lulu" is annoyingly overly-saccharine, but then, she's supposed to be that way. And both characters-- Lulu and Junko-- grow and mature during the course of the film. Makiko Watanabe stands out as Junko's over-sexed mother. I also enjoyed Ini Kusano as Lulu's overweight, obsessed, stalker fan. His character is a darkly humorous reflection of some of the horrifying sexual predators to be seen in Satô's earlier work.

Many of Satô's most common themes are at play here-- urban alienation, isolation, obsessions, suicide, examinations of individual identity and interpersonal relationships, the dehumanizing, gazing eye of the camera, and all that other fun stuff-- but without the extremes of sex, violence, gore, and general insanity that make his earlier work such an exhilarating, if unsettling viewing experience. Some of the shots in this film, such as an isolated individual in the midst of a teeming Tokyo street scene, could have come right out of some of his best Pink work. But in comparison with the take-no-prisoners mayhem of Satô's earlier work, this one seems tame.

This is a decent, if not spectacular film, and it held my attention from beginning to end. I recommend it highly for any fan of Satô's work, as a look at what the infant terrible of '80s Pink is up to these days, and I recommend it moderately for anyone else interested in contemporary Japanese cinema.

Day Whatever of My Hisayasu Sato Birthday Binge: I just watched this for the first time: Tokyo Stray Girls AKA Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano (2010). Look, I know. The Sato die-hards dismiss it. But i find it a decent watch-not a masterpiece, not a total gut-punch, but a flawed and fascinating, quiet little mirror he's holding up to his own work. It's like his own nihilistic commentary on his own legacy, a defiant deconstruction of the very genre he helped define.

The film follows this shy office worker who, to escape her miserable life and a truly narcissistic mother, gets into the adult video industry. She reinvents herself as "Lulu," a blue-haired otaku-bait character. But this isn't just a costume change; it's a full-on identity theft from her own soul, and it gets frighteningly real. Enter the other half of the title: Ayano, a more cynical actress, and this gloriously weird, toxic, and weirdly tender dynamic forms.

What's fun is how this film totally ditches the analog grime and chaotic, bodily-fluid energy of his earlier stuff for a clean, sterile, digital look. This aesthetic isn't an accident-it mirrors the utter falseness of the AV industry, where every moan is a performance and every personality is a commodified product. Sato shows us the biz not as a den of illicit passion, but as a tedious JOB. A daily grind of awkward positions, unfeeling takes, and cigarette breaks. The classic themes of voyeurism and obsession are still there, but they're filtered through a modern lens of parasocial relationships and the creepy, possessive danger of online fandom. It's a quiet, sad meditation on loneliness. The over-the-top violence at the end? Don't mistake it for his old shock tactics. It's a final, desperate act of rebellion that somehow builds to this bittersweet, almost peaceful closure.

So no, Tokyo Stray Girls isn't a direct copy of, say, Perfect Blue or Anti-Porn, but it shares the same bruised and cynical soul. It's about a woman shattering and losing herself inside a constructed identity, the lines between who you are and who you perform for cash blurring into nothing. It's a profoundly sad film about a dehumanizing industry, but it also, defiantly, finds this sliver of quiet strength in the bond that forms between Lulu and Ayano. Their relationship, built on shared trauma and a mutual "screw this" desire for escape, becomes the one authentic thing in a universe of pure artifice. For all its clean visuals and surprising lack of explicitness, it's a deeply personal and strangely compassionate film. It argues that even in the most broken, fabricated places, some form of real, messed-up connection is still possible. And maybe that's enough.

I haven't seen any of the director's earlier work, which is probably for the best.

The acting is very wooden in this. At one point our lead is giggling about how she "feels hollow inside." I know depression; that feeling doesn't leave you giggly. The mother is a caricature at best, not a real character.

I noticed that the two leading females never seem to change their outfits. This is just one of many examples of the cheapness of the piece. You can make a good film with no money, but you need some ideas.

If I'd known the director was previously involved in pink cinema I'd have skipped past the nudity bits, they did drag on.

Ultimately this film has no redeeming qualities I can think of. It's slow, when there is gore it's confined to some red paint in a squirty bottle, and every character that appears seems hammier than the ones before.

M