And be forewarned that the narrative jumps around A LOT, to the point of distraction. It doesn’t have near the impact I’m guessing the filmakers wanted it to have. The climax isn’t really a climax at all, just another bump on these kids’ road to maturity and adulthood. It’s a very tenuous thread, and the film’s climax is minimized to near-inconsequence by a myriad of other things going on. The only constant throughout is the teen’s fascination with Lily and their anonymous online rants about what her music means to them. On the OTHER hand, “All About Lily Chou Chou” is essentially plotless.
I felt like I was actual witness to some of the events in the movie, but was ultimately powerless–as Yuichi often is–to affect any of it. The handhelds really did manage to draw me in further than I would have been otherwise. The many scenes shot with handheld cameras made me feel like I was tagging along with these kids, whether on an ill-fated vacation to Okinawa or an assault on one of their classmates.
All about lily chou chou sound cloud movie#
It’s very cinema verite in feel and I had to remind myself on ocassion that the movie wasn’t a documentary. I also enjoyed the way “All About Lily Chou Chou” was shot. It’s easy to see why these kids would be so captivated by her music.
Both the faux pop songs by the fictional Lily and the haunting score are a delight. As soon as the movie was finished I went online to track down its soundtrack (and in the process discovered that some of “Lily Chou Chou’s” score, by composer Takeshi Kobayashi, made its way into Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. His transition from often picked-on stellar student to being a brutal bully himself is one of the more tragic aspects of the film, yet also one of its most captivating.Īnd the music? Is incredible. He plays Shusuke Hoshino, whose ascent into young adulthood the movie also chronicles. Shûgo Oshinari (“Battle Royale II”) is fantastic as well. He doesn’t have a ton of dialogue in the film, but he manages convey that array of emotions we all felt when we were 12- and 13-years old–those first pangs of arousal, angst, jealousy, fear, humility and anger. Particularly impressive is Hayato Ichihara (who was only 12 when filming began on “All About Lily Chou Chou”) as Yûichi Hasumi, the quiet, slightly nerdy and often bullied Lily fan. The performances are wonderful across the board. It’s perfectly symbolic of the movie’s wayward, lawless and seemingly parentless teens who are tethered to the world around them only by the ethereal music of singer Lily Chou Chou. The shot of young Yuichi in his school uniform listening to his CD player in a field of tall green grass is haunting and gorgeous in its composition. On one hand, it’s a beautiful film, filled with gorgeous images of rural Japan.
The result is a film that's flawed and brilliant in equal measure.įashioning this tale of teenage alienation into a much grander project about pop culture, technology and the breakdown of human relationships, "Lily Chou-Chou" further proves Japan's growing reputation for producing haunting and disturbing cinema.All About Lily Chou-Chou | Blu-ray (Film Movement)Ĭast: Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Takao Osawa, Miwako Ichikawa, Izumi InamoriĪs I sit here typing this review I’m still trying to figure out whether I like “All About Lily Chou Chou” or not. Yet, for all its meandering lack of focus, Shunji Iwai's apocalyptic vision of teenage angst creates some fascinating sequences (such as the boys' dreamlike trip to Okinawa, filmed through their digital video camera). Relying on a confusing flashback structure and a ponderous accumulation of incidental detail, "Lily Chou-Chou" is desperately in need of some streamlining. Returning to school, he defeats the school bully and begins a reign of terror that no one, not even Yuichi, is safe from. But after a lavish trip to Okinawa (that's paid for with stolen money) ends with an unexpected death, Hoshino begins to change. Yuichi's turbulent life in secondary school begins as he befriends Hoshino (Oshinari), joins the kendo club, and gets mixed up in the odd spell of petty crime. It's the perfect image of writer-director Shunji Iwai's world, a place in which nothing (from bus hijackings, to pop concerts and even school trips) is experienced first hand, because it's always mediated through technology that distances individuals from each other - often with disastrous results. Japanese characters flash up on the screen as Yuichi (Ichihara) logs onto his "Liliphilia" website to chat to other fans of the pop star Lily Chou-Chou. "All About Lily Chou-Chou" opens with the clattering sound of a computer keyboard.