As, the credits rolled when it was finally over I was just in awe and speechless at this masterpiece.
#All about lily chou chou 2001 movie#
Rewatch Value 8.0 Overall, this movie is just.outstanding and impressive. If you’re more of a traditional watcher, who prefers movies with a solid plot and conventional characters, do not press play - but definitely go listen to Debussy, his music is just brilliant. If you’re not scared of this eerie, weird atmosphere of some Japanese movies, try All About Lily Chou Chou, most probably you won’t be disappointed. To sum it all up – this movie is not for everyone. Also, this movie was dangerously close to being draggy, nearly two hours and a half with so little dialogue and so much pain can be really tiring. Why? Sometimes I had the feeling that this mentioned opposition between the beauty of the form and brutality of the characters was too overbearing. The transformation of Hoshino is shocking, but possible and that’s the most depressing thing about this movie.Įven if I think All About Lily Chou Chou is groundbreaking, it’s not a masterpiece for me. But then, when you sit back and think once again about what you’ve just seen, you will most probably see a logic between all this madness. It’s a commonly used trick, present in many other movies, but frequently it makes the viewer confused and utterly lost, without a chance to understand what the heck he just watched. At first, nothing makes absolutely no sense, we have no idea what is happening, not to mention why do all those things happen at all. This dissonance is sickening, but also brilliant and makes the film different from anything I’ve seen so far.Īnother thing worth mentioning – chronology of All About Lily Chou Chou.
#All about lily chou chou 2001 full#
The substance – full of brutality, mindless violence and helplessness, against the form – breathtaking shots and subtle, soothing music (my discovery of the movie - Debussy’s Arabesque!), makes this movie really disturbing and unforgettable. Never have I seen such a contrast between a form and substance of one movie. Rewatch Value 8.0 Painfully beautiful, chaotically organized - if I had to sum up this movie in the shortest way, that’s what I would say. The film has a discontinuous storyline, starting midway through the story, just after the second term of junior high school begins, then flashes back to the first term and summer vacation, and then skips back to the present. Immersed in the speed of everyday troubles, their lives inevitably climax in a fatal collision between real and virtual identities, a final logging-off from innocence.Īll About Lily Chou-Chou follows two boys, Shunsuke Hoshino and Yuichi Hasumi, from the start of junior high school when they first meet and into second grade. As they negotiate teen badlands- school bullies, parents from another planet, lurid snapshots of sex and death- these everyday rebels without a cause seek sanctuary, even salvation, through pop star savior Lily Chou-Chou, embracing her sad, dreamy songs and sharing their fears and secrets in Lilyholic chat rooms. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival.Life isn't easy for a group of high school kids growing up absorbed in Japan's pervasive pop/cyberculture. Things come to a head tragically at a long awaited Lily Chou-Chou concert. Yuichi's suffocating situation at school leads him to consider suicide, something he confesses to "blue cat" - his only confidant. At home he finds sanctuary with his favorite singer Lily Chou-Chou, for whom he has devoted a website called "Liliphilia." One day, he encounters on the net a fellow Lily-phile who goes by the handle "blue cat." As Hoshino's power grows, he demands that Yuichi tail fellow classmate Shiori Tsuda ( Yu Aoi), who he is pimping out to older men. In order to scrape up the cash to meet Hoshino's daily extortion demand, Yuichi resorts to petty theft and shoplifting. At school he is beaten up and harassed by his former friend Hoshino. The film centers on Yuichi Hasumi (Hayato Ichihara), an eighth grader who lives in a sleepy town in rural Japan with his mother, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend's son. Wildly popular filmmaker Shunji Iwai breaks a three-year hiatus following his less than successful April Story with this elliptical drama about teenaged alienation, violence, and celebrity.