Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter offers a scathing commentary on the state of the culture of celebrity in modern Japan and the commodification of beauty, particularly of youth.

Helter Skelter's commentary is extremely clear from its outset. The main character, Lilico, has peaked in her popularity and is now facing replacement by models who are younger than her. The film follows her journey, particularly her decline, as she becomes more acutely aware of her disposability in the industry that had created her.

Helter Skelter's commentary, while potent, has the issue of being a bit on the explicit side. There are some points where dialogue seems to exist solely to explain what happened or what already happened, particularly at the end with the two police investigators. Rather than relying on implication and visuals along, which are, themselves, fine, the film has the tendency to fall back on dialogue explanations which kill the pacing and make the experience feel like the viewer is being spoon fed information that we were just previously shown.

I felt that this film went on for too long. The problem stems mostly from scenes of expository dialogue that reiterate what we can already see. The police investigators are the biggest source for this. Their scenes, along with a few others, feel like the point of the film is being painfully reiterated over and over and in the final part of the film, every potential end scene is followed by another, almost as if the film doesn't want to end. In a way, it starts to dilute its own meaning with its lack of brevity.

The performances and cinematography in this film are great. The psychotic, sadistic nature of the main character is played in the same manic way a lot of Japanese films like this are played and it translates here well. The special effects are sparse, but when used, help add to the increasing surreal experiences of the main characters.

Overall Helter Skelter is a film that feels like it is on the verge of being much more than it ends up being. I feel like the film would have greatly improved from some tightening up in the editing phase and, were it cut down to under 2 hours, I think would be more impactful than it is in its current state. As a piece of modern Japanese cinema, it isn't bad and I'd recommend it to anyone who might find this film's premise interesting.

It's a sensational film staring Erika Sawaziri film - her first performance since 2007, Helter Skelter. In both positive and negative ways, Erika Sawaziri is like Paris Hilton in that she are beautiful but something gets involved in scandals. However, I think that she performed skillfully in this film.

Lilico as portrayed by Erika Sawaziri is an outstanding, charismatic model with an attractive body that appears on the covers of many fashion magazines. However, her pinup style body is the result of plastic surgery. While Llico is suffering from after effect of the repeated plastic surgeries, her desire to appear never abates. She lives in fear that she will be abandoned as her beauty fades. The president of her production company portrayed in this film by Kaori Momoi. An orthopedic surgery with a story behind. Lilico's manager (Shinobu Terashima) is obsessed with Lilco's beauty and tries to serve life for her no matter what Lilico gives her manager cruel and selfish treatments. And Kozue (Kiko Mizuhara), who supersedes Lilico's position easily with her natural beauty.

The film expresses well situations behind fear of eating into mentality as talents and models where they might loose their bright front stage as a product using cosmetic surgery in consumer culture. Brightly-colored scenes created by director Mika Ninagawa entertain the audiences as if they are looking at photograph collection of pop art. I did not particularly like or dislike Erika Sawaziri as an actor, but I think that her performance and expression have something of catching your eyes.

It serves as a poignant critique of the fashion and modeling industry, as well as the beauty brands that impose unrealistic standards and misleads countless women; specifically the younger bunch into valuing their external appearance above all else.

While I appreciate the underlying intention, it is regrettably the extent the narrative seems willing to explore. There were significant voids that demanded attention, characters required further development; without that, the story remains superficial, presenting a facade of beauty that lacks substance underneath.

Much like the 'beauty industry'; It became the very thing it sworn to expose.

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.

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.