Herutâ sukerutâ

In a very exaggerated way, it shows the entanglement between fashion circle and cosmetic surgery. The plot, tone and lens of the whole film are all exaggerated. Unfortunately, the prosecutor has played soy sauce, but it also conforms to reality.

While I love this line, I am on the fence about loving the entire film. It was dark, for that I give it all the credit in the world. However, it seemed to progress slowly and even though the slow progression was visually engaging, it wasn't enough to always hold my attention. The story was just ok for me but the lead actress did a wonderful job with this character.

With all this said, let me just add that I intend to watch the film again. I am hoping the second time around, I may be able to clear up anything I may have missed. I may love it after a second viewing. Give it a chance you may get it all in one viewing and absolutely love it.

Wisdom as applies to this film is twofold. Firstly, fame is fleeting. Secondly, in the fashion and modelling worlds one needs to consistently remain up-to-date and flawless. There is no room for slacking or letting up. The world would otherwise pass one by. Helter Skelter, the second feature film by fashion photographer Ninagawa Mika, is a fascinating and fast-paced look inside the world of style, models, egos and icons, yes, but more fundamentally consumerism and the cult of capitalism. Setting aside documentaries like No Logo or The Corporation one can only think of movies like American Psycho, Captain Fantastic or They Live which have been so entertaining yet so critical of materialism and modernism at the same time. It is a live action adaptation of the manga of the same name. Those who have watched the director's previous film Sakuran should have an inkling what to expect in terms of approach and explosion of colour and vibrancy. It is quite a sight to behold. With that said, nothing will prepare the viewer for the depiction of design, sound and thematic wallop that is Helter Skelter. This film is true to its name, uncompromising and downright scary.

Liliko (Sawajiri Erika) is Japan's most beautiful, most adulated, sexiest and ubiquitous super model. Her body, legs, face, lips, nose, hair, nails and clothes are iconic. She is perfect. Her likeness is everywhere and sells everything. Everyone wants to be her, see her or use her image. Unbeknownst to her legion of fans - a plot device that is hard to swallow - she harbours a secret however. Liliko is the product of a myriad of plastic surgeries. Except for her "eyeballs, ears, fingernails and pussy" she is as manufactured as a human being could be. The model looks stunning even when crawling on the floor due to exhaustion or knocked to the ground in a haze of pills. It takes strength and determination to maintain her existence - she tells her chubby younger sister to become beautiful because "beauty makes you strong" - and she, alongside a dedicated team comprised of a manager, an assistant and others, is up for it. Unfortunately for them, however, her procedures are not permanent and require constant touch-up and regeneration. The more she gets work done, the more follow-ups she requires. As such, she is as much a hostage to her plastic surgeon's table and tablets as she is to the hordes of fans loving and idolizing her. At one point someone references Michael Jackson in the film. Setting aside Liliko's picture-perfect appearance Joan Rivers would have done as a cautionary example of extreme plastic surgery as well. In trying to maintain her beauty, and thus her popularity, things get out of hand. To make matters worse Liliko's position atop of her industry does not exempt her from envy and rage. She is jealous of new face Kiko (Yoshikawa Kozue) with whom she is told to work. What is worse, Kiko is under contract by the same agency. Liliko understands the fleeting nature of her existence as a product and makes sure to safeguard her position and disrupt her competition. While nature may have given Sawajiri improbable beauty her talent as an actress is also palpable. Her portrayal is extreme and chilling as hell. Liliko is the paragon of perfection, but is ruthless and self-aware knowing what she needs to do for her position and fan base. That may be true, but no one comes out looking good here. This is not a tale of a good girl victimized. Her enablers are as ruthless - if not more so - and do not suffer much of a moral dilemma either. As such it is as much a horror movie as it is brilliant and magnetic and often a difficult watch. Keep one eye out for proof that this assertion is correct. The film perhaps takes the exaggeration one step too far however.

Ninagawa eschews the easy way of contrasting the good guys from the bad guys and crafts a film that instead shows neither mercy nor sympathy. It is a compendium of amorality and consumerist society's corruption that throws in everything from misandry, misogyny and manipulation to misuse and malfeasance. As it attacks mass culture and consumerism to a loud and omnipresent soundtrack and cornucopia of breathtakingly vivid colours it is no accident that the cool fashionable girls of Shibuya are seen and heard scrolling away on their smart phones at McDonalds. The constant dramatic music heightens the effect and evokes Clockwork Orange with its incongruous use of Classical music, the action is a whirlwind of dizziness and the glamourous scenes could only have come courtesy of a photographer who has first-hand experience with the subject matter at hand and is undeterred at mocking it. She is surely biting the hand that feeds. Given the courage and in this context, Ninagawa is fortunate to have procured such a talented actress making her return to the front of the camera. Not for one second does one feel that Sawajiri is merely acting or not fully inhabiting her character. She plays the shallowness and skin deep representation of the pinnacle of beauty with a full-body depth and from sex to modelling scenes and from visiting with her younger sister to NTR makes the viewer feel every situation.

Several items are worth noting. It is not only Sawajiri's real-life experience as a model, actress and manager and Ninagawa's photography and years of relationship with models and celebrities that renders the film positively, but there are several other real-life parallels lurking throughout Helter Skelter. For starters Sawajiri married a producer in real-life. The film features Suzuki Anne, an actress who rumour had it was b-listed in Japan for gaining weight. In the meanwhile, the director's previous movie was called Sakuran, a title whose meaning is not that far off from this film's. Helter Skelter is a film that repeatedly reminded me of a personal belief that the more popular a thing or person the more inferior it is. The movie attacks the triumph of form over substance and, furthermore, seems to act as a reminder that it usually ends badly.

Lilico is a bad seed, a sadistic supermodel and the darling of all Japan who has turned herself into, as another character from the movie puts it, "a machine for the processing of desire…" Problem is that all her plastic surgery is slowly necrotizing her flesh, and as she slides down the bat pole into oblivion she drags everyone with her, including her female assistant (whom she sexually assaults) and the foot soldiers she dispatches to throw acid in the faces of other models.

In the hands of Sion Sono or David Cronenberg, this material would have been rich and nuanced. What begs to be explored is that central notion of the desire machine. Lilico's primary dilemma is everybody's – how do we constitute ourselves as subjects in this period of late-stage, global capitalism, where we exist in a state of constant flux between two poles: self-commodification and compulsive consumerism? The problem is hinted at, but never fleshed out: the human body is no longer a space in which people realize themselves politically, creatively, erotically, or spiritually; rather, the body has become ancillary to the functioning of a global market economy, a thing that is used by and subservient to ideology.

In the end, Helter Skelter is a pretty-looking mess, which isn't surprising because that's often the result when fashion photographers, in this case Mika Ninagawa, take a stab at directing feature films. Ambitious, but a mess.

Its posters and other promotional materials may sell it based on skin and sex, but there is really so much more to former fashion photographer turned director Mika Ninagawa's sophomore film 'Helter Skelter'. At the risk of sounding clichéd, what you think you know about the movie is really only skin-deep, as this adaptation of Kyoko Okazaki's award- winning manga proves to be one of the most riveting Japanese films we've seen in a long while - thanks to its bold take on an absolutely timely subject.

Essentially a cautionary tale on the pursuit of beauty and fame, it weaves a compelling psychosexual horror drama around a fictional celebrity named Lilico. Rather than start at the beginning, Ninagawa introduces her audience to Lilico at the height of her popularity, the latter's flawless doll-like features and to-die-for figure making her the object of desire for young girls around the country. Every teenage girl wants to be like her, and that in turn has made her the subject of intense media interest, which explains her appearance on almost every fashion magazine and her crossover into the world of movies.

Unbeknownst to her adoring fans, everything about her is manufactured – well, except her "eyeballs, ears, fingernails and pussy". The extent of her radical makeover is never shown, but hinted at especially with the sudden appearance one day of her sister, a plump and dorky girl whom you would never in your wildest imaginations ever think was related to Lilico. Her individuality stripped completely in order for her to be the vessel of others' desires, Lilico thrives on the affirmation of her adulating fans, most of whom are no less shallow than her.

A more conventional narrative might have opted to paint Lilico as someone we are supposed to sympathise with, but Kaneko Arisa's script eschews such contrivances in favour of a fully formed character study. Much as we might be inclined to empathise with her for being manipulated by her talent agency boss, a domineering mother figure whom Lilico calls Mama (Kaori Momoi), we also learn that she is no angel on the inside, especially in the way that she psychologically manipulates her assistant Michiko (Shinobu Terajima) and the latter's boyfriend Shin (Go Ayano).

Like a tightly coiled spring, Ninagawa carefully builds the tension as Lilico's precarious life unravels bit by bit. Turns out that Lilico's plastic surgery clinic uses illegal – and worse, unsafe – methods on their clients, and is being investigated by a public prosecutor named Makoto (Omori Nao). Not only does Lilico find her seemingly perfect façade crumbling with black patches, the drug she injects into her body to maintain her decaying complexion gives her hallucinations, her brittle state of mind further battered by her declining popularity following the rise of a new fresh-faced model Kiko (Yoshikawa Kozue).

Truly remarkable is the razor-sharp precision by which Ninagawa portrays the dangers and pitfalls of modern-day society's obsession with beauty and fame. On one hand, the movie criticises the celebrities who would go under the knife just to look more and more like what others would love for them to; on the other, it chastises the hypocritical nature of their fans, who would be just as effusive in idolising them as they are swift in switching loyalties. Without one, there would not be the other, and Ninagawa makes an empathetic point that either is equally culpable for constructing and reinforcing a vision of beauty that is ultimately unattainable.

But more than just social commentary, Ninagawa offers an experience in her film that deserves to be felt. Part of that is the visual palette she has chosen, from the playful colours of Lilico's photography sets to the garishly red-saturated interiors of Lilico's apartment to the simple but no less memorable image of a blue butterfly in Lilico's hallucinations. Part of that is also her stylishly executed shot compositions which – combined with some nifty techniques she deploys – make for plenty of visual fodder to keep you fascinated.

All that visual trickery would be for naught without a strong character- driven narrative – and this is where Arisa's script truly shines. Every character is clearly defined in relation to Lilico – whether is it the authoritarian Mama who had helped shape Lilico in the form of her youthful self, or the over-accommodating Michiko whose blind allegiance to Lilico destroys her life, or Lilico's one and only romantic interest Nanbu (Yosuke Kubozuka) who leaves her to marry a politician's daughter – and what is especially interesting is the consistent use of a narrative device that where each of these characters gives his or her perception of Lilico.

Such an approach means that a lot hinges on Erika Sawajiri's performance as Lilico, and thankfully she is absolutely stunning in the role. Returning to showbiz after a five-year absence, Sawajiri inhabits the character completely, her brave and utterly committed portrayal of a starlet's fall from the heights of celebrity heavens spellbinding in its intensity. Veterans Momoi and Terajima provide fine supporting acts, but the show belongs absolutely to Sawajiri, letting her audience feel ever so keenly Lilico's fears, insecurities, anxieties, and motivations.

Both as a richly realised character study as well as a critique on today's celebrity culture and obsession over beauty, 'Helter Skelter' rises tall above its soft-porn impressions to amaze as one of the rare Japanese films that works as biting social commentary. Sure, some might argue that it tends to go over-the-top with an almost surrealistic feel, but that very quality makes it all the more mesmerising to examine what is in itself a seemingly ludicrous preoccupation. It is dark comedy at its very best, fascinating to watch every step of the way and perhaps one of the most unique films you'll see this year.