Once every year i watch this Shunji Iwai and Noboru Shinoda Masterpiece
and often then in the autumn when it's gloomy and dark
outside, something that matches the despair ... and beauty of this film.
Share the Pain of the youngsters in this film and feel miserable,
indulge yourself and afterwards you will feel better.
At first i watched this great film on the old Hong Kong DVD and then
on the US DVD (see pic above) and now, finally, on the UK
2019 Blu-ray release. As this amazing film is something of the ultimate
fusion of visuals and soundtrack it deserves to be seen on a BR.
Some other of my favourite films with great visuals are A Clockwork
Orange, Barry Lyndon and Requiem for a Dream.
I still consider AALCC to be a Film Masterpiece and
my favourite film this millennia, followed by Requiem for a Dream and
Gaspar Noé's
2009 Enter the Void. The best youth drama i've ever seen and sometimes
with almost painfully beautiful images. Hypnotic & fascinating.
A remembrance of how hard it could be sometimes being a teenager. The
film is a film experiment by Iwai and his Eye to the World,
genius cinematographer Noboru Shinoda - R.I.P. and
this even though this was the 1st japanese feature film recorded on
HD Video.
Blu-ray Booklet
This film, is both cruel and beautiful, a harrowing
drama about pained japanese teenagers. About 14 year olds Yuichi
Hasumi (Hayato
Ichihara) and talented A student Shusuke Hoshino (Shugo
Oshinari) whose only light in their lives are their love for ethereal
pop singer
Lily Chou-Chou, and Lily's songs was sung by ... yes, an ethereal pop
singer named Salyu.
The film is also about schoolgirl and gifted piano player Yoko Kuno
(Ayumi Ito) who's harassed by the other girls and who's taking her
refuge to piano playing and the music of Claude Debussy, and about poor
Shiori Tsuda (Yu Aoi) forced into prostitution and who can't
find a refuge anywhere. The soundtrack by Takeshi Kobayashi is just
.... magic.
"Kids these days are very scary"
Says a middle-aged lady visiting Yuichi's mother's hairdressing
salon and that's a theme in the film, about juvenile delinquency and
the
time when kids are 14 and when they can be both Angels and Monsters.
The film takes place between 1999-2001 when Yuichi alias
Philia is 13 - 15 years old. He lives with his pregnant mother, stepfather
and his
stepbrother and he's silent and moody, pained really and his only joy
is listening to the music of Lily Chou-Chou. A Crush i guess, and I
had such a crush when i was about his age too (for a beautiful american
singer, and ethereal she was too). So Yuichi is a Fan, and he's the
moderator of Lily's Internet Forum, and only there he can give words
to his feelings, about life and about his love to Lily and interact
with
other confused and lost youth's. Sometimes there are only text messages
from the Forum seen on the screen, as the conversation between
Yuichi's nickname/avatar Philia and Shusuke's Blue Cat.
The kids don't know who's behind the Forum nick-names
and when they finally meet at the Concert, it's in one of the strongest
scenes i
have ever seen on film. The emotional impact is enormous.
The Concert
Yuichi (Hayato Ichinara) in front of the big screen
with Lily (Salyu)
After a 1999 summer vacation trip to the southern island
of Okinawa (filmed by the boys with a shaky hand-camera) and an accident
with Hoshino almost drowning, he changes into an evil bully and the
leader of the gang of schoolmate boys, or more like a gang of thugs.
He becomes the darkness for some of them, for Shiori Tsuda who he forces
into prostitution, selling schoolgirl sex to older men, for
Yuichi who's forced to do his biddings, and for Yoko Kuno who gets raped,
due to the jealousy of the other girls in the class of her musical
talent and her popularity among the boys. Yuichi is in love with not
just Lily but also in Kuno.
All of the young and inexperienced actors in the film
are good, but Shugo Oshinari as the nasty Shusuke Hoshino
is fantastic. The bully
whose life crashes due to family problems and after his near death experience
on Okinawa this turns him into a new and worse person.
He does a Re-Set and becomes a bully who releases his anger on his class-mates.
Also he can emit love, but only to Lily, and his face at
the concert stadium when someone shouts "Lily is Here" you
won't forget, his face lightening up, the tough shell falling off, an
intense
harrowing and sad but unforgettable scene. Thanks Shugo Oshinari for
your acting here and thank Mr. Iwai for your sensitivity.
The Finely Calibrated Sensitivity of Shunji
Iwai ? Yes, that could be the problem for many filmreviewers
who maybe prefer the nihilistic
pretentions of a filmmaker as ... let's say Haneke. It's harder to lay
off your protecting armour and to subject yourself to this emotional
ride,
back to your childhood, to your teen years, to be naked and unprotected
for 2 hours and 26 minutes. It can be painful.
Shusuke Hoshino (Shugo Oshinari) - even the bully
takes refuge in Lily's music
It's interesting that the mostly absent adults in this
film, when they appear, seems to be pretty nice and caring about the
kids (not the
sex buyers naturally) as the sweet teacher Osanai, and that the adolescents
creates their own hell themselves. A cruel insect world
where the rule is to eat or be eaten. It's brutal as kids are no angels.
Remember when you were a teenager ? Hormones raging, finding your own
way in life and not to attract any attention from the
predators, the bullies of your school, as no-one wants to get bullied.
School-yard Rule 1: Always fight with some younger, smaller and weaker
school-kid than yourself (only kidding here)
An emotional and visual full frontal attack
All About Lily Chou-Chou - it just get better everytime
i watch it. The film is an emotional and visual full frontal attack
from one of
Japan's most talented directors, Shunji Iwai, a filmmaker with films
as the amazing Swallowtail Butterfly (my second favourite of his),
Love Letter, April Story, Picnic, Vampire and A Bride for Rip Van Winkle
on his CV.
I remember when i watched it the first time (in 2002 or 2003?) and how
overwhelmed i felt, emotionally drained and bombed down
afterwards. Moved. Almost if as i had got the Stendahl Syndrome, like
Asia Argento at the beginning of the Dario Argento film
when she visits the Uffici in Firenze and when watching the paintings
is taken by sensory overload and faints (after have been diving
into a marine painting and kissing a big ugly fish) and this being the
Last great scene Dario has filmed, yet.
Textsheet with US DVD
The first AALCC watch can be confusing and with repeated
viewings one notices new details, and for me every scene felt right
and needed
and something that finally made the film a complete whole. But, a small
warning, this is a lenghty film with it's 2 hours and 26 minutes, and
it's
also somewhat experimental in it's way of telling the story fragmentary
and with it's groundbreaking visuals. It's unique for sure.
It has divided the filmlovers, if IMDB is to be believed, and either
you love AALCC or finds it to be confusing, too slow and too lenghty.
It's often a good sign if a film either is loved or hated, then it's
no routinely flick.
Once, i used to prove this my thesis by going watching movies that had
got the worst Bomb reviews (as Suspiria got in 1978 when it was
awarded an Xed over Wasp in Swedish evening-paper Expressen in what
should've been an infamous review by this asshole critic).
The Gorgeous End Credits
The All About Lily Chou-Chou Test -
The First Minutes .... or the Last
Someone wrote, maybe on IMDB, that a sure Litmus test
on if this film is for you or not, watch the first 5 minutes of it or
the End credits.
If you haven't been captured or even hypnotized by the unique start
with chat-room messages flashing on the screen, by the music or by
the images of Yuichi in the middle of the beautiful green grass, or
by the equally beautiful End credits - then maybe this film is Not for
you.
The perfect combination of Visuals, Music and Teenage
Angst. At first it was the Japanese youths that embraced the film, and
then a
youthful audience in the rest of the world, as their own. Yes, the sensitive
and beautiful filmlovers that were interested in asian film that is.
I remember as i had a DVD shop then and i sold many copies of the Hong
Kong DVD.
The Blu-ray presents the film in widescreen 1.78:1 and
with a japanese audio 5.1 or 2.0 stereo with english subtitles, region
ALL.
Extras only Making Of featurette, a new essay by Stephen Cremin with
a prologue by Shunji Iwai and a Booklet.
What i would've wanted to see also was an interview
with genius cinematographer Noboru Shinoda - R.I.P.
(1952-2004) who worked with
Shunji Iwai on many films. With AALCC they shot the first japanese feature
film using digital HD, and also listen to Takashi Kobayashi
about the soundtrack and the music to many other Iwai films, as The
Yentown Band with Chara in the wonderful Swallowtail Butterfly.
.....................................................................................
The US 2005 DVD presented the film in anamorphic widescreen
1.85:1 with a japanese audio stereo with english subtitles, region 1.
Extras: Making Of Documentary (55 minutes, i.a. about Iwai's Internet
experiment with the chat forum of Lily, his novel, his work with the
youngsters and the Music Video of "Wings that can't Fly" with
singer Salyu, an Iwai biography, trailers and a text sheet (see pic
above) with
an essay by Iwai where he tells us how a Faye Wong concert in Hong Kong
became the lightning spark to his novel and film.
What happened to Shunji Iwai after AALCC - Vampire ?
(Read about this great film on my Japanese Film Page 2)
He made an animated sequel to Hana and Alice and in 2016 A Bride
for Rip Van Winkle - read more about this film on my Japanese
Film Page 1,
and in 2018 the Chinese produced Last Letter (Ni hao
zhihua) - read more about thhis film on my Japanese Film Page 1.
In Swedish Below !
När Iwai gjorde ALCC 2001 stod han på toppen
av sin konstnärliga förmåga och han hade efter några
hektiska år från början av 1990-talet skapat en rad
enastående
och unikt personliga filmer. Sen följde i regiväg en kortfilm
(som jag inte gillade, just så sötig som hans belackare anklagar
honom för att vara) och, i mina ögon, något
lättviktiga Hana och Alice 2004 (denna film vill jag se om nu 8
år senare för en ny bedömning) och 2006 en varm dokumentär
om vännen och den store japanske film-
skaparen Kon Ichikawa, samt manus till andras filmer och en episod till
en temafilm som jag ej sett.
Iwai är idag delvis bosatt i USA och 2011 var det så klart,
Iwai's nya projekt och första långfilm på engelska
med icke-asiatiska skådisar - Vampire.
Japp, en v-a-m-p-y-r film med Kevin Zegers i huvudrollen som lärare
med matintresse i självmordsbenägna unga kvinnor. Ryyys, låter
som en ordentlig kraschlandning
det och katastrofvarning utfärdad men jag hoppas innerligen att
Iwai efter alla dessa regilösa år inte är pinsam.
Vampire visades på Sundance 2011 och på andra festivaler
OCH ....... jaaaaaaa, det blev ingen romantisk spya, det blev ingen
vampyrfilm i egentlig mening alls rentav,
det blev iof sig en katastrof om man läser recensionerna och ALLA
HATAR filmen. Det är en egensinnig och kärvt motsträvig
Shunji Iwaii som tydligen har gjort en film
INGEN vill se. Så en sorts kraschlandning blev det tydligen (jag
har i skrivande stund, mars 2012, inte sett filmen då den ej släppts
på DVD än) men inte av de skäl jag
befarade. Shunji Iwai går fortsatt sin helt egna väg utan
tanke på kommersiella krav, det känns skönt och man
kan bara hoppas att Iwai (50 nästa år) ännu har elden
kvar
för att göra ännu ett mästerverk. Ring Chara Shunji!
Jag tror det kan bli magi om ni samarbetar igen
Vampire - Läs mer högre upp på min japanska
filmsida 2. Jag tyckte den var briljant.
