"A ll About Lily Chou-Chou" is like an ancient text that requires modern commentary. It"s not an old film (it"s cutting edge Japanese techno-angst) but it"s so enigmatic, oblique and meandering that it"s lượt thích coded religious texts that requires monks khổng lồ decipher. In this case, the monks are the critics. They won"t tell you anything you haven"t figured out for yourself, but they will confirm that there"s no more to lớn the movie than you thought there was. This movie is maddening. It conveys a simple message in a visual style that is willfully overwrought.
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The story: Lily Chou-Chou is a Japanese pop idol, who must be real, since she appears in concert, but who we never see. Ironically, then, one of her songs consists of repetitions of "I see you và you see me." She is idolized by Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara), a student in high school. He has a crush on the real-life Yoko (Ayumi Ito), a gifted pianist. Both Yuichi & Yoko are the targets of cliques of school bullies.
For a while, Yuichi has a friend, Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari), a fellow student who turns into a sadist & forces Yuichi lớn steal money và give it to him. Hoshino has another sideline: He pimps Shiori (Yu Aoi) khổng lồ prostitute herself with businessmen, and makes her give him most of the money. Shiori has a secret crush on Yuichi, but is under Hoshino"s control & pathetically confides on the telephone, "Lately, when I think of men I think of customers." The elements are in place for a powerful story of alienated Japanese teenagers, but the writer-director, Shunji Iwai, cannot bring himself to lớn make the story accessible to lớn ordinary audiences. He and his cinematographer, Noboru Shinoda, are in love with their lightweight digital camera, and give us jerky hand-held out-of-focus shots. Some sequences are so incomprehensible they play as complete abstractions. I know, it"s a style. It"s a style that was interesting for a brief season và is now tiresome & pretentious.
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Either you make an experimental film that cuts loose from narrative, characters & comprehensible cinematography, or you bởi not. Iwai seems to lớn want khổng lồ tell the story of his characters, & it could be a compelling one (some of the scenes have are poignant or wounding), but he cannot allow himself to make the film in a way that can communicate. That would be, I guess, a compromise. He has made a film that few reasonable ticket-buyers will have the patience khổng lồ endure. It will be appreciated by a handful of highly evolved film watchers who can generate a simultaneous analysis in their minds, but what is the point, really, in making a film that closes out most moviegoers? The world that swims murkily khổng lồ the surface of "All About Lily Chou-Chou" is certainly a frightening one, eclipsing even the anomie of the Columbine killers. These students drift without values or interests, devoting all the passion of their young lives lớn creatures who may exist only on the Internet. Shiori has sex with strangers for pay, but is too shy to tell Yuichi she likes him. Yuichi"s life has been turned into hell by Hoshino, who seems khổng lồ act not so much out of hatred as boredom. The film"s teachers và adults care, but are hopelessly misinformed about what is really going on.
There is a movie here somewhere. Shunji Iwai has gone to a great khuyến mãi of trouble khổng lồ obscure it. "Lily Chou-Chou" has been compared by some lớn Truffaut"s "The 400 Blows," which was also stylistically groundbreaking in its time, but Truffaut broke with traditional styles in order lớn communicate better, not khổng lồ avoid communicating at all.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.