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Pros: Makes for an interesting multi-media project.
Cons: It's still not a very good film...
The Bottom Line: An interesting, yet deeply flawed, film.
Movie Review: For the uninitiated, the Japanese education system may conjure up visions of row upon row of obedient and disciplined students rigorously preparing for their future positions as loyal life-long employees at major corporations. In actuality, Japanese schools have become increasingly dangerous places, where the incidence of youth crime has grown dramatically over the past two decades.
In addition to growing reports of gakkyuu houkai ('breakdown of order in classrooms') and a steady rise in incidents of bullying by students, the incidence of violent crime has soared, which has led to the phrase 'seventeen and deadly' being coined by the press. For example, in 1997, the country was shocked by an incident in Kobe where a junior-high student decapitated an elementary school student. The following year, a teacher was fatally stabbed by one of her students after being repeatedly chastised for being late for class. Even prostitution has infiltrated high school campuses with the practice of enjo kusai ('paid dating'), in which businessmen pay teenage girls to have dinner or go karaoke with them, opening the door to the selling of sexual services later on.
In 2000, the late Kinji Fukusaku pointed to the high-pressure and ultra-competitive nature of the Japanese education system as being the root cause of the 'seventeen and deadly' phenomenon in his highly controversial film "Battle Royale". In "Battle Royale", a class of grade nine students are left on an island and forced to kill each other until there is only one survivor-- a thinly veiled analogy for the nationwide examinations issued during the ninth grade to determine advancement to higher grades, particularly in the country's more distinguished senior highs. If "Battle Royale" was a stylized metaphor for the turmoil in Japanese high schools, then Shunji Iwai's coming-of-age tale "All About Lily Chou-Chou (Riri Shushu no subete)" is the cold splash of reality presented in all its uncompromising ugliness.
"All About Lily Chou-Chou" revolves around the growing pains of high schooler Yuichi Hasumi (Hayato Ichihara) a die-hard fan of fictitious Japanese pop star Lily Chou-Chou. For Yuichi, the music and worship of Lily Chou-chou is a refuge from the bullying, nihilism, and disappointment that embody his regular school day, and to that end, he spends most of his spare time running a web site dedicated to the singer and participating in on-line forums. Like the film's soundtrack of wall-to-wall music selections, the songs of Lily Chou-chou fill a gaping hole in Yuichi's dismal life.
As the film crosses several years of Yuichi's high school life, we witness how Yuichi is befriended in his first year of high school by the gifted Susuke Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari) and how a mishap during a summer trip to Okinawa triggers a change in Hoshino, who initiates a reign of terror as the school's top bully. Weak and defenseless, Yuichi has little recourse but to go along with Hoshino's whims, which include petty crime and beatings. Of course, the adults in the story either remain completely oblivious to what is going on or choose to ignore what is happening right under their noses.
Unfortunately, Yuichi eventually comes to a point where enough is enough. One catalyst is the fate of Yoko Kuno (Ayumi Ito, who appeared in Iwai's "Swallowtail"), who runs afoul of a powerful clique of girls and pays a steep price. Kuno is the person who first introduced Yuichi to the music of Lily Chou-Chou, and because of that, he harbors feelings for her, yet lacks the courage to tell her. Meanwhile, another girl, Shiori Tsuda (Yu Aoi), has an unspoken affection for Yuichi-- even though she is being pimped by Hoshino to provide services to middle-aged salarymen, she cannot work up the courage to express her feelings. However, the final straw for Yuichi comes when Lily Chou-Chou holds a concert in town and Hoshino ends up destroying his last vestiges of happiness and dignity.
Comedian George Carlin once mentioned that high school was a lot like prison, and in "All About Lily Chou-Chou", the comparison could not be more apt. Theft, violence, prostitution, and rape are everyday occurrences in the lives of Yuichi and his classmates. But despite the very adult situations that these teenagers are faced with, Iwai's unblinking camera reveals them for the children that they still are. One telling scene has Yuichi and Shiori on opposite sides of a bush after having said their goodbyes, waiting as they try to find the opportunity and words to express what they want to say-- unfortunately, they are not yet emotionally equipped to handle such a simple task, let alone the horrors they face at school.
While "All About Lily Chou-Chou" is uncompromising in how it depicts high-school life in Japan, there are a number of other areas where Iwai could have done some trimming. Most noticeable is the indulgent narrative that seems to orbit incessantly around the points that Iwai is trying to make. For example, an extended sequence covering the fateful trip to Okinawa seems to go on and on forever like someone's unedited vacation footage (which it actually seems to be), and some judicious cutting would have been welcome. In addition, the film is punctuated by snippets of web conversations between Lily Chou-Chou fans (some of which were actually appropriated from real messages left at a web message board set up by Iwai), some of which have a bearing on what is happening in the story, but many others which do not. Combined with the story structure that jumps backwards and forwards in time, trying to keep up with the film while reading between the lines is at times exasperating.
Another aspect of "All About Lily Chou-Chou" that might turn off potential viewers is Iwai's use of digital cameras, eschewing the rich look of film for the glaring sheen and washed-out colors of video. While the handheld camerawork imbues a sense of 'you are there' cinema verité to the proceedings, at times, the images are so herky-jerky or dimly lit that it is difficult to figure out what is going on. Those viewers who are used to Iwai's cinematic masterpieces "Love Letter" and "April Story (Shigatsu monogatari)" are certainly in for a rude awakening.
Several years in the making and having gone through multiple incarnations (including an unfinished novel and an on-line forum), "All About Lily Chou-Chou" is a film that confronts the destructive power of teen alienation in modern-day Japan head-on. Unfortunately, many viewers will likely be turned off by the inaccessible fashion that Iwai has crafted his film, which is rife with indulgent filmmaking, muddled messages, and laggard pacing. However, for those viewers with the patience and resolve to give such a challenging film a chance, Hong Kong's Panorama Entertainment has just released a new all-region DVD, as well as a VCD, of the film. True, the execution may not be as flashy as "Battle Royale", but the message is just as grim and unforgettable.
Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
All About Lily Chou Chou began its life as an interactive novel written by director Shunji Iwai (who also gave us Swallowtail and Butterfly, a film that heralded the arrival of a major new talent in Japanese cinema) and posted on the internet. Unfortunately, it probably worked better in the novel format than it does as a film.
As a film, Lily Chou Chou is a series of strikingly beautiful images that are consistently broken up by a lackluster and disjointed plot filled with the kind of philosophical profoundness that can only come from angst-filled teenagers. Since the pseudo intellectual pronouncements would never work as dialogue, Iwai presents them as kanji on the screen—the desperate ramblings of Lily Chou Chou fans in an internet chatroom. In the old days, they’d have probably just been really bad poetry—isn’t technology great?
It’s a coming of age story with a decidedly Japanese slant, but Iwai tries to dress it up into something more through the use of just about every art film trick in the book--a disjointed narrative throughline, long and ponderous shots, characters that are oblique and often inscrutable, and a penchant for divulging everything through exposition (in this case, the chat room transcripts that interrupt the film roughly once every ten minutes or so). Because of this, the film will be a tough sell for American audiences—most of who will be put off by the pace and the rather glib presentation.
The Lily Chou Chou of the title isn’t the central character, but rather a Japanese diva akin to Bjork or maybe Sade. Her music is ‘ethereal’ as she’s supposedly connected to some secret world the rest of us can’t quite see. That she was born at the exact moment that Mark Chapman killed John Lennon is either brilliant marketing by her handlers or a convenient and not-so-subtle hint that there really is something to her music.
Lily is the string that binds the film together. While we never see her on the screen (which was a wise choice since it would have probably shattered the illusion for most viewers), her spiritual manifesto is spouted by no less than a dozen or so mega fans in a Lily-holic chatroom. The room’s manager, a young male named Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is perhaps the biggest Lily fan of all. Posting under the name philia, he uses the chatroom and Lily’s music to escape from his tragic Japanese existence. Yuichi is bullied by his peers, and eventually forced into a life of crime by the ringleader, Hoshino.
This bullying, which eventually leads to rape and murder, seems to be what the film is truly about. In a way not unlike Kinji Fukasaku’s controversial Battle Royale, Iwai presents the volatile and increasingly more violent Japanese youth culture for all to see. It’s not a pretty picture—witnessed by how casually a group of boys rape a classmate. While the picture the film paints is fascinating—and occasionally frightening--it’s not really enough to sustain the movie for its roughly two and a half hour running time.
In the film’s defense, it’s beautifully shot. Iwai still has a keen eye for dynamic visuals and some of the scene compositions are nearly poetic in their beauty. Shots of Yuichi standing alone in lush green rice fields while he listens to his Lily Chou Chou cds are breathtaking in their simplicity. Unfortunately, time and again these shots are cut from so that the viewer can watch yet another boring chatroom exchange on a black screen.
Ultimately, I wanted to love All About Lily Chou Chou. Shunji Iwai is a gifted filmmaker with a unique visual style, and that is the film’s one saving grace. It’s a shame that the brilliant visuals can’t make up for the overly melodramatic chatroom discussions or the hard to follow narrative. There’s a very good idea buried somewhere in this story, but Iwai never found a way to draw it out. That his main character is such a wimp certainly doesn’t help matters, either. If you’re really interested in Japanese cinema, then All About Lily Chou Chou is certainly worth a look. However, if you’re an impatient viewer who doesn’t have a lot of tolerance for ponderously paced foreign films, you’ll want to steer well clear of this one.
- Confusion is one of my least favourite emotions, especially when I have to put up with 146 minutes of it.
- I'm not sure All About Lily Chou-Chou made sense in my head, but it made sense in my heart.
- Once you get into its rhythm ... the movie becomes a heady experience.
- A difficult, absorbing film that manages to convey more substance despite its repetitions and inconsistencies than do most films than are far more pointed and clear.
- For all of its insights into the dream world of teen life, and its electronic expression through cyber culture, the film gives no quarter to anyone seeking to pull a cohesive story out of its 2 1/2-hour running time.
- A hypnotic cyber hymn and a cruel story of youth culture.
- The gutsy film didn't help itself by making it so difficult to follow the story and by being so morose.
- This movie is maddening. It conveys a simple message in a visual style that is willfully overwrought.
05:39PM TH
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