Rating:
Director: Shunji Iwai
Producer: Koko Maeda
Writer: Shunji Iwai
Director of Photography: Noboru Shinoda
Cast: Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Takao Osawa
Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew
| ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU Rating: Director: Shunji Iwai Producer: Koko Maeda Writer: Shunji Iwai Director of Photography: Noboru Shinoda Cast: Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Takao Osawa Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by: Dan
Tester
8/13/02
All About Lily Chou-Chou is a mess of epic proportion. Literally. It tries to tell a complicated tale of teen angst in the structured society of modern Japan, but does so in such an unstructured way that it simply becomes a tsunami of self-indulgence. It tells about five different stories, not at once, but in an open-ended stutter-step style that becomes so annoying and incomprehensible that I was left completely frustrated well before the film's 146 minute running time finally ceased to unravel.
The film opens with the story of Yuichi Hasumi (Hayato Ichihara), a lonely 8th grade outcast who worships a Bjork-like singer named Lily Chou-Chou. He spends his days chatting with other fans on a Lily Chou-Chou fan web site that he also manages. One day he meets Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari), another school outcast who is abused by the schoolyard bullies. The two become friends of convenience, and the first half hour of All About Lily Chou-Chou, depicting the lives of the two lonely losers, is definitely the high point of the film. I enjoyed it, and just as I began to settle into this interesting tale, the film takes a sharp left and never recovers.
The two venture to Okinawa for a spontaneous and wild summer vacation with some cute girls, and it is here that the first of the many tragedies strike, sending the characters, and the film, into a wild spiral. Upon their return, many inexplicable things occur. Hoshimo, the abused outcast, suddenly becomes the bully after a bloody confrontation with one of his tormenters. I'm not sure how he attains such power with one impulsive act, but he does. His friend Yuichi now becomes his lap dog, enduring abuse now from his former friend. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe Hoshimo is insane. He certainly has some wild fantasies. But that is kind of left to interpretation. On that note, pretty much all of All About Lily Chou-Chou is left to interpretation. I only wish the director had taken on some of the responsibility.
The rest of the movie is an abstract montage of evil actions with no discernable motivation, involving prostitution, rape, mutilation and murder. This is content that can be provocative and involving, but these sorts of elements are ones that must be earned, not just presented. Larry Clark makes movies like this, most notably Kids and the more recent Bully. The characters in his films do similarly horrible things to each other, but I am never left wondering why. Maybe it has to do with the society I live in. Maybe these things seem more believable to me because it happens in a small American suburb, not in Japan. Maybe in Japan, people will watch this movie and say, ah yes, I see why they did that. But evil seems universal, so this doesn't seem to be the case. Clark takes the time to develop his characters into realistic, albeit twisted, elements of Americana. Surely the Japanese teen culture also includes these sort of antisocial creatures, but unfortunately it seems the filmmakers think just this concept alone is enough to sustain a film of Chou-Chou's proportion. I think the film fails because the director, Shunji Iwai, isn't interested in establishing motives or even the most basic element of character development; just prototypical caricatures of teen rage thrown against a backdrop of Japanese culture.
Iwai seems far more interested in focusing on the visual aspect of the film, which has its appeal to a point. He definitely has a vision for the look of his film, with lots of beautiful colors and clever angles. The entire summer vacation to Okinawa is filmed on digital video, and is effective in establishing a "home movie" feel. I just wish he had been as concerned with the content that he was actually focusing his lens on. I don't know if this review makes much sense. The movie sure didn't. There was definitely a tale to be told here, but it would have been better suited for a filmmaker more interested in telling an actual story than beefing up his director's reel.
But as always, it is only one man's opinion.
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