The
coming-of-age subgenre, chronicling the transitional period between childhood
and adulthood, typically focuses on teenagers and their internal struggles with
leaving their youth behind as they move from high school into college or
wherever life takes them. Often told in
flashback, it’s the kind of story which can make for some wondrous emotional
and spiritual discoveries, such as the filmography of John Hughes or the
slice-of-life episodic journeys that define Richard Linklater’s work. They can also highlight how unpleasant life
experiences can make or break the lives of the youths in the midst of their own
personal evolution.
The
last so-called ‘dark and heavy’ coming-of-age film I can recall was the
contrived and forced The Dangerous Lives
of Altar Boys, a film with a curious mixture of animation of live action
which showed promise but also felt like the darker elements were trying too
hard to elicit a reaction. The same
can’t be said, however, for Japanese writer-director Shunji Iwai’s still devastating
and galvanizing 2001 drama All About Lily
Chou-Chou which took the darker elements further than any other film of
it’s kind I had seen up to this point without completely going off the
rails.
Recently
re-released on Blu-Ray by Film Movement in a new 2K digital restoration, Iwai’s
interactive internet novel turned sprawling digital video epic remains as
visually striking, sonically soothing and emotionally draining as it was when
it was first released eighteen years ago.
Depicting a group of Japanese youths living near the outskirts of Tokyo
in a rice field, life for the thirteen to fifteen year old high school students
is overrun by juvenile delinquency, violent bullies, teenage prostitution and
gang violence including but not limited to ambush and/or sexual assault. For the film’s hero, Hasumi (Hayato
Ichihara), the only salvation from his daily Hell is through the music of a
Bjork-like pop singer named Lily
Chou-Chou.
Originally
the project began as an internet novel with Iwai himself moderating a chatroom
named Lilyholic with himself posing
as several of the characters in the story.
Readers were able to comment and interact with one another, forming much
of the dialogue ultimately used in what would become the feature film itself. For Iwai, it was an experimental approach to
screenwriting and gave the writer-director a firsthand taste of the early
experiences of online social media interaction.
Much
like Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 horror film Pulse,
All About Lily Chou-Chou is prescient
for its critique of the growing isolation and erosion of socializing brought
about by the internet and online chatrooms.
Throughout the film, Hasumi moderates a website dedicated to Lily Chou-Chou’s music with the sounds
of keyboard typing and text messages printed onscreen deliberately interrupting
the picture like intertitles on a silent film.
Adding
to the film’s critique of the impact of the impending digital era on Japanese
youth is the film’s ethereal digital cinematography by the late Noboru Shinoda.
The very first Japanese film to be shot
on the (at the time) brand new Sony HDW-F900 digital camera, the film has an
evocative, dreamlike quality with the corridors of high school hallways and
open rice fields glistening and shimmering on the camera.
The
film also makes use of rough handheld DV cameras in a pivotal flashback
concerning Hasumi and his former friend Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari) who, after a
group trip to Okinawa followed by a near death experience, undergoes a drastic
change from mild-mannered all-A student to viciously violent bully who proceeds
to bring misery and pain to everyone he comes into contact with.
Due
credit must be given to the cast of young newcomers who are tasked with acting
out scenes of unspeakable cruelty and violence that frequently go curiously
unnoticed by the surrounding adults. In
one scene, for instance, a former bully now upstaged by Hoshino is forced to
crawl around naked in the muck and in a particularly heartbreaking scene, a
young and gifted pianist who sparks the jealousies of her fellow female classmates
has her head shaven for real.
That
said, much of the surrounding cast of youths form an ensemble cast with the
troubled former friends who previously bonded over Lily Chou-Chou’s music taking center stage. Shugo Oshinari’s transformation from meek and
quiet good kid to savage evildoer is still terrifying to see happen in real
time. As for the film’s central
protagonist, Hayato Ichihara imbues the soft spoken Hasumi with sympathy and a
modicum of compassion despite the brutal world he finds himself caught up in.
The
driving force for the youths of Iwai’s painful drama, and the film’s narrative
thrust, is of course the music of Lily
Chou-Chou. Composed by longtime Iwai
collaborator Takeshi Kobayashi with vocals by the singer Salyu, the music
represents a brief escape for the characters as well as a point of separation
from friendship to enemy.
Claude
Debussy also features heavily on the soundtrack with Arabesque No. 1 and Clair De
Lune landing thunderously on the piano keyboard during key scenes of
unfettered pain and sorrow. Debussy’s
cues have featured throughout many television programs and feature films over
the years but this may be the heaviest use of his music we’re likely to ever
see in a film.
That
the music so beloved by Hasumi was introduced to him by his former friend
Hoshino only serves to underline what can be one person’s salvation can be
another’s gateway to sadism. Fans of
Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 will
no doubt pick up on the sampled cue used when Hattori Hanzo shows off his sword
collection to The Bride, though one could argue the depths plumbed by All About Lily Chou-Chou far outweigh
any of the darkest moments in Tarantino’s entire filmography.
Running
at 146 minutes with frequent intertitles of computer text, elongated musical
montages and cross-cutting rapidly between the past and present to form an
overarching story, All About Lily
Chou-Chou is an uncompromising affront to narrative cinematic language
which not everyone will be able to stomach.
Bullying in Japanese films such as Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q pushed the envelope to absurdist heights, treading a fine
line between horror and hilarity.
With
Shunji Iwai’s film, however, neither the characters no we are allowed such an
escape route until the film reaches its gavel drop of a finale. While some elements of social media
interaction are indeed dated, the perspective on juvenile delinquency in
Japanese high school is as fresh as it was in 2001 and remains a remarkable
cinematic achievement well worth revisiting.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki