- #All about lily chou chou film movie#
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- #All about lily chou chou film free#
Restless yet thoroughly dreamy, All About Lily Chou-Chou encapsulates the tragedies of adolescence through the struggle to cope with life’s strange voids. Though Lily Chou-Chou is a fictional character, the elaborate backstory created for her lead to the production of the film’s cult-status soundtrack, delivered by the singer Salyu prior to her debut.
#All about lily chou chou film movie#
In fact, Shunji Iwai had adapted his movie from an ‘internet novel’ he had instigated in 2000, providing characters to an online community to which contributions were posted on a message board. While the online identity of other characters are left for viewers to speculate, Lily Chou-Chou -embodying the ‘ether’ herself– is never seen on camera. Bumbling text dialogues render the awkward hesitancy of early digital communication. Real life is split between the virtual, where Yuichi (as ‘philia’) oversees Lily Chou-Chou’s online fan rooms. Set in the muted rural landscapes of Tochigi Prefecture, All About Lily Chou-Chou’s story is particularly vague, as if to play with its own strange emptiness. In spite of a list of awards that could compare him to Takeshi Kitano, his cinema is unconventional, exemplified in disjunctive cuts, ambivalent plots, and a revelling in naivety. Shunji Iwai’s hazy, atmosphere-led filmography can capture social realities through his subtle poetics, but his relatable narratives are always encapsulated with darker elements. Yuichi struggles to connect with others, but as he waits to be transcended at Lily Chou-Chou’s big Tokyo concert, the film’s spacious, misty cinematography -of hushed skies and countryside roads- depicts the effects of escapism. With Shunji Iwai’s illusive cinema, the airy soundtrack of 2001 film All About Lily Chou-Chou evokes the solitude experienced by Japan’s disaffected youths. According to online message boards, her ethereal voice carries an invisible substance fans call ‘the ether’, virtually omnipresent and capable of purifying life from pain. incidentally, much of the films drama and marvel comes from this quality.Lily Chou-Chou is the only salvation for Yuichi, an anxious 8th grader who sees the enigmatic musician as his goddess. however, respectfully, this film does a fine job of depicting its characters and events in a manner that allows for the viewer's empathy without pointing direct fingers or offering direct solutions. this film is very much based in a realistic society with realistically harsh and shocking issues and occurrences. this is not so much a problem until the viewer begins to feel manipulated in a propaganda-like fashion. with much of what goes on in the world today, filmmakers feel social commentary is an added bonus (or even a main goal) to depicting a narrative.
#All about lily chou chou film free#
lastly, the film did well to keep free of preaching. by the film's closing the style is not so much regretfully confusing as it is fittingly and fully dramatic, as well as both amazing and beautiful. the abrupt, but fitting pattern between flowing, dreamlike camerawork, shaky camerawork, textual discourse, and the eerily sensual, fictitious lily chou chou tracks provide a momentum that is both refreshing in its originality but effectively discomforting. during the non-video portions of the film, the colors are beautifully rich, with verdant fields and saturated skies. at one point, a vacation sequence is depicted solely through excited and dizzying amateur videography by the boys themselves, humorous close-ups of accompanying girls' bodies included. the camera is often puerile and shaky when showing the boys' ventures and conversations. visually, the filmmaking complements the ideas perfectly. although executed in an arguably confusing manner, consisting of many non-chronological vignettes, the film ultimately succeeds in depicting a modern-day story involving the relationship between two early-adolescent japanese boys, their journey through life and school, their changing identities, and their fascination with and "connection" to the strangely popular musician, lily chou chou. the nicely-scripted, brilliantly executed text acts as the backbone that beautifully holds together a story that is ultimately about many things, including the fragility of relationships and the personas we use based on them, fanatical envy and love contrasted against blind rage and hate, metamorphosis, and technology versus nature.
#All about lily chou chou film series#
"all about lily chou chou" begins with a series of manually keystroked chat-room-style statements that introduce facts and ideas, mostly related to mythical pop-star "lily chou chou." this sort of cinematic introduction sounds similar to many other computer-age-themed films, but amazingly the keystroke dialogue between several anonymous internet fanatics continues past the credits and runs through almost the entire movie.