Never have I seen such a contrast between a form and substance of one movie. The substance – full of brutality, mindless violence and helplessness, against the form – breathtaking shots and subtle, soothing music (my discovery of the movie - Debussy’s Arabesque!), makes this movie really disturbing and unforgettable. This dissonance is sickening, but also brilliant and makes the film different from anything I’ve seen so far.
Another thing worth mentioning – chronology of All About Lily Chou Chou. At first, nothing makes absolutely no sense, we have no idea what is happening, not to mention why do all those things happen at all. It’s a commonly used trick, present in many other movies, but frequently it makes the viewer confused and utterly lost, without a chance to understand what the heck he just watched. In this case… you will feel the same. At first. But then, when you sit back and think once again about what you’ve just seen, you will most probably see a logic between all this madness. The transformation of Hoshino is shocking, but possible and that’s the most depressing thing about this movie.
Even if I think All About Lily Chou Chou is groundbreaking, it’s not a masterpiece for me. Why? Sometimes I had the feeling that this mentioned opposition between the beauty of the form and brutality of the characters was too overbearing. Also, this movie was dangerously close to being draggy, nearly two hours and a half with so little dialogue and so much pain can be really tiring.
To sum it all up – this movie is not for everyone. If you’re not scared of this eerie, weird atmosphere of some Japanese movies, try All About Lily Chou Chou, most probably you won’t be disappointed. If you’re more of a traditional watcher, who prefers movies with a solid plot and conventional characters, do not press play - but definitely go listen to Debussy, his music is just brilliant.
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The plot was just like a story, well somewhat. It starts off in a unique showing of events. The current time, then the past, then back to the present, which could be confusing but if you're paying close attention you can see that it was only a way to absorb the main characters feelings more.
Seeing each individual child affected by negativities and the adult-like world they seem to be trapped in was just even more mind-blowing. This movie made me realize that bullying isn't just about stealing lunch money and that bullies have a "story" too.
The acting was really great, they acted out the scenes so realistically and added with the regular "video camera" filmage in some parts of the movie, it makes it seem as if you are really part of the movie, even taking in the young ages these actors were at when this movie was filmed was just more astonishing and made me realize how talented they were.
Summed up - this movie is just heart clenching and a definite must see!
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With such a long running time, it's difficult to wrap my head around what I feel about this film. It's also my first Shunji Iwai film (and it wouldn't be the last). Iwai, cinematographer, Noboru Shinoda and music director, Takeshi Kobayashi are able to beautifully portray something so brutal through the colors, the shots and the music. That's cruel. You see something so terrible happening in front of you but you're so mesmerized because it's done so beautifully. They romanticized teenage angst so well.
The plot is simple and it doesn't try too hard. The narration is easy to follow despite it not being linear...it makes you more intrigued to watch. But perhaps a problem lies with the plot's simplicity yet carries an almost riddle-like script writing with its overwrought and difficult-to-decipher black screen, white text repetitions. It's poetic but together it's words that don't make sense... generally to just normal watchers. (What is Lily's Ether????) It's trying to be philosophical in a coming-of-age film which in one hand, captures this change but at the same time, leaves you baffled and scratching your hand. There's just a lot of vagueness, a lot of interpretation (You decide the identity of those posting in the board too) of you to do that it creates a miscommunication between director and audience in the expense of telling his characters' stories.
We have an amazing pool of young characters that drive the story forward with Shugo Oshinari whom I think has the most interesting character. It seems like he underwent some kind of ephiphany (though not really in a good way) during a trip to Okinawa and just...changes. Just snaps. Kikeru - sudden fits of rage. It's interesting but at the same time the "why" isn't explored. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's not the why but the what.
Hayato Ichihara is your typical wimpy loner that allows himself to be bullied. It's pathetic and not fun to watch. You don't feel bad but Ichihara plays his character like he doesn't want you to pity him...instead he wants you to slap him awake. I think that is engagement with the audience. For a film with such a simple plot and long running time, we need that.
And again, cinematography is just great. The colors are bright and crisp. The setting is in Ashikaga in the Tochigi Prefecture and the film captures the setting (not in the hussle and bustle of busy Tokyo) so well and it just perfectly wraps itself in the context of the film.
Most of the scenes are shot probably using a lightweight camera especially in the Okinawa scenes with shaky shots and hand-held shots. This is to establish a sense of connection with the audience...as if you're watching a home video. It's effective (and profanely beautiful) but it could be too much in a 160 minutes run. The music is superb, sang by fictional-idol Lily Chou-Chou (Salyu in real life) and it reflects the mystic and visual allure of the film.
I think that this film has some underlying social commentary to it. A film that's full of mystic and vague messages. Is it simply to show the extreme lengths of youth violence that is fueled by teenage angst which would cause bewilderment especially in a society such as Japan's? A society that boasts of politeness (highlighted in the film too), of social order, or discipline, of stability and of staying true to its norms and roots? Is there a place for rebellious teenagers? What about worshiping an idol to the point that you believe her songs exists even in the normal realms of reality? Idol-worshiping and virtual reality and to an extent, escapism are big things in Japanese society. Does the internet offer refuge from the horros of the reality especially in that kind of society?
Like one commentator said, "Lily Chou-chou is just human." Or is this film simply to show human life as what it is? Iwai's message is simple but it's up to you to decide what's your take on it.
Finally, if you're expecting a satisfying conclusion after watching so long. Don't. That too, is up to you. This film isn't for everyone. So if you can sit for 160 minutes and watch a romanticized story of teenage angst then this is for you. Or if you want to think about life...this might be for you too. In the end, it's the way the story was told through amazing visuals that got me. It's a powerful, haunting and honest coming-of-age film.
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The idea of seeking out music to shield you from everyday life is very relatable. I cannot speak for everyone but I feel it applies everywhere, especially at the early years of adolescence. I remember some past hard years and how I'd never leave home without my ipod. This is probably what makes this movie prominent - this movie is over a decade old and yet all that is present in it is still very relevant to our present time.
The bullying was very intense, I'm left wondering if it is really that intense in Japan...because a lot I've seen here have reoccurred in anime/manga and Ruth Ozeki's novel, A Tale for the Time-Being. It's also what distracted me from catching the symbolism and underlying themes.
This movie dragged a bit for me and I found the camera angles (I dunno how to say it) a little too chaotic for my liking. I guess it was to match with the instability of the characters lives. I promise you, that is not an exaggeration. By the end of the movie I was exhausted from the amount of tragedy in this movie.
I think one of the amazing aspects of this movie is the character development of Hoshino and Yuichi and how their relationship develops. At first you don't understand how they are connected but as the movie unravels, your heart begins to aches as you connect the dots.
I really hated the passiveness of the teachers. Maybe it is a norm for teachers to not get too involved with the students. But, personally I think there were such huge red flags present in the class that the teacher should have reacted to but all I saw the teacher do was conduct music rehearsals. Additionally, she only asked what was wrong at the end of the movie.
I have to re-watch this movie to fully appreciate it. The amount of shit the characters go through kind took a lot of attention from enjoying the subtleness of some of the scenes. My favorite would be the scene with the kites.
The soundtracks are amazing. If you aren't interested in watching this movie, then at least listen to the soundtracks.
Overall, I did like the movie.
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This review may contain spoilers
The things you hold dear, friends, family, lovers, hurt you the most. You live with thatI saw this last night with a thought of not expecting anything since I read the synopsis with a lightweight but as I dived into the film & to the story, everything seems went black. I guess this film isn't for everybody, the themes at least. The film talks about abuse, depression, prostitution, and gang-related vices but all of these things were surrounded by these kids.
The focused of the film is about this boy and his love for this ethereal singer called Lily Chou Chou, where he finds a gateway out from his dark realities. The film also has this chat like messages in sequences of the story though sometimes it bothers me because I want to see the whole film without too much flickering of chat messages but somehow it is part of the film. You need to read those chat messages in order for you to know who's who in that chat board that relates to the characters.
While this boy who likes his ethereal singer lily chou chou, the film brings you into his backstory of how he meet the people around him that causes him to do bad things. The timeline is not organized, it will throw you back into some details of the timeline then it will back to the present so it's a little confusing too.
The used of music in this film as well as the camera angles and shots that were will bring you into the 90s culture. The overexposure of light in the night, the used of a video camera as part of the backstory.
There are particular scenes you can tell that this film is owned and made by Shunji Iwai. The uses of objects and spaces as the character become part of it.
I have read in the review that this reminds them of A Brighter Summer Day and when I read that I also thought of that ending too, yeah it reminded me of that, the involvement of gang among kids and that final act. The film itself feels like a lengthy music video that is gloomy and eerie. The characters involvement to each other and their downfall were somehow controversial and intriguing to me. There are some parts that I don't get that I did read some long reviews for me to understand this film.
What I noticed is that during the chat messages, the kids in this film didn't know who's who. They tend to act as they are with each other or to other people without conveying their true feelings about what's happening in their life but through lily chou chou, her music and through that chat board, they somehow find solace and connected as they share their deepest and dark thoughts. Which this proves how is the purpose of the internet and making online friends because of having the same interest.
As I said, this film is not for everybody. It maybe triggers warning for others but for some, this film is their favorite because it speaks to them.
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"For me, only the Ether is proof that I'm alive" "For me, only Lily is real."
"For me, only the Ether is proof that I'm alive""For me, only Lily is real."
One of the most depressing movies I've seen, the quintessential 'disillusioned youth' movie. It's so beautiful, Iwai's perfect direction of deeply disturbing scenes gives them a massive impact without feeling disrespectful or overdone, constantly edging the line between being overly edgy and 'emo' but never crossing it, instead being a very grounded and mature societal commentary. The plot unfolds pretty confusingly which is probably it's biggest flaw (I don't really see the point in it being non-linear) but also not something that I found issue with as it helped you flow along with it and become absorbed. If you are looking at it from some artistic standpoint, you could say that it portrayed the confusion and messiness of the youth of the characters, but idk.
The visuals and music are by far the best I've ever seen in a movie, love the soundtrack so much the album is one of my favourite albums ever if not my favourite. The score is also fantastic, Debussy was the perfect choice and the performances are especially beautiful, my favourite I've heard of Arabesque No. 1. They both combine to create a dreamy and, well, ethereal atmosphere which feels both oppressingly depressive and weightless, as if you could spread your arms and fall back into the tall grassy fields of Ashikaga. Every second of the movie has had a lot of love poured into it and it shows, on a rewatch and after further research there is a lot I missed out on the first time around. It is a unique experience and one that I haven't found anything close to.
This definitely isn't for everybody though and that's understandable, it's pretty confusing on a first watch (keep in mind it's nonlinear) and watching it with a large group of other people who are watching it for the first time made me realise that. I think you gotta be a certain kind of person to connect with this but if you connect deeply it'll be a one of a kind experience.
Spending a lot of time in Lily Chou-Chou communities online made me realise how much the movie means to so many people around the world. It's sad that the overwhelmingly bleak and cynical portrait of the world painted in the movie is reflective of real life and how many Yuichis, Tsudas, Kunos, and Hoshinos are out there. The adults are all largely absent from the children's lives, when they are present they are either fucking it up even further or giving pointless, shallow advice, leaving the kids to get sucked into a cycle of being hurt and hurting others. Their only refuge is the ether, as the tagline says:
"PAIN CAN TAKE YOU IN PRISON. THE ETHER CAN SET YOU FREE."
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This review may contain spoilers
Other reviews have already covered how great the cinematography is in All about Lily Chou Chou and how the music ties the story together so I won't go into depth about that. I just thought the movie was a masterpiece. I had never seen a film like this that had flawlessly interwoven all the things that makes life so beautiful and yet ugly. And the timeline wasn't confusing at all like I've seen people say. The years were told on screen and I knew the story went into the past around the middle of the movie because Hoshino had changed so much. Also, there were hints early on that Hasumi (philia) was talking to Hoshino (bluecat) online. We the audience knew that Hoshino was a Lily Chou-chou fan first and was the one that introduced Hasumi to the artist. Hoshino in the flashback scene had a Lily Chou-chou poster in his room and Hasumi asked who it was when he stayed over. It was interesting that in the present day timeline the person that caused Hasumi the most pain and was destroying his life in the real world was also the one that was giving him comfort online. It really goes to show that you don't know who you're speaking to in this internet universe. And the scene towards the end of the movie where the two worlds (cyber and real) collide at the Lily Chou-chou concert left a deep impression on me. Was this review helpful to you?
1The sheer contrast between vivid, peaceful, utterly gorgeous and pristine rice fields and the teenagers growing up around them is painfully sharp. The intense guilt a weak bullied kid can feel contrasted with the fuck-it-all rage of a kid whose world went from stable with the kid a very easygoing sort to a financially ruined house with us only getting to see how the kid copes, completely transforming after a sudden rebellious trip that was the last bit of fun before a downward spiral…
Nothing I am saying here is a spoiler. This is not a linear timeline at all, and it is less a plot than being thrown straight into a middle school hell and reliving what you’ve likely either experienced or been afflicted with the pain of witnessing but having no way to change the horror someone is enduring… even with helplessness, though, we see how different the results are for kids enduring nightmares with just one person checking on them versus ones with no real sense of safety net to shoulder to lean on or even, as we see at one point, someone to physically inflict a tiny portion of one’s pain on and not be abandoned. There are powerful moments throughout if you tune in with a sense of compassion and curiosity. Those same moments, though, can easily be ignored by viewers, casting a mirror on how callous and apathetic a person might very well be seeing emotionally wrecked peers, neighbors, family members, or even total strangers. It demands your attention. It screams at you to not ignore their plights… yet does so without preaching one bit, only showing you the different kinds of humans all around and letting you see in some of them parts of yourself, some possibly uncomfortable, if you let it test your compassion and don’t throw on, even in the physically safe space of a room with a film on a screen, a shield of apathy as a defense against those preying on the defenseless.
I can absolutely recommend it to some and absolutely can NOT to quite the majority. It depends on what art you find value in. While this is not at all a BL and only has faint flickers of a couple of straight crushes that are by no means the story, just pieces of young teens’ psychological makeup, the two recent stories that I might be able to say “if you found value in… then consider this…” about are Smells Like Green Spirit (which has some overlap in story elements and likewise sharply contrasts the feelings of being stuck in your home you find hellish and finding a place you can breathe and just be a kid) and Happy of the End (because you need the same sort of ability to get immersed in the wretchedness of others’ lives and find worth in the media presented to you to really appreciate this).
It is hard hitting, and it is LONG (just 20 minutes short of 3 hours)… but it is phenomenal. If you ARE young and enduring bullying, mental health struggles, social isolation, or are witnessing it happening to others, this won’t be suitable. It is something I would absolutely put restrictions on in a cinema—R level for the content.
It also needs a dozen trigger warnings, among them sexual assault, bullying, and possible epilepsy triggers from fairly frequent fast and intense flashing of black and white graphics that are critical to read but might also induce a migraine in some. In any case, this is a rare film I took a break from mid-viewing. It starts in a disjointed manner that you just have to trust will go somewhere… but once you are locked into their world, it can feel exhausting. It might also be something many start, can’t get into, and go back to later. It is very much a mood piece.
I had to think a long while about my rating, but I found no flaws in this as I did indeed “lock in” which Debussy and my past experience with his works as a lover of his music certainly helped. Brilliant use of music, especially as the music heard the vast majority of the movie is not even the music the youth are getting immersed in. It got a truly hard-earned 10 from me. Every technical detail, every cast member’s performance, and the story told through stunning cinematography and painfully realistic performances wowed me even through an incredibly simple overarching narrative.
This may be a slight spoiler in terms of how this closes out this chapter of their lives though I won’t give details on the plot: The main near-end event of it which is both a negative and positive for characters in it (a cruel truth I’ll leave at that) and the simple thought of how different things could and would have been had someone not been fighting to survive and fighting others in that process… it is so incredibly poignant it kept hitting me harder and harder as I reflected on what I had watched.
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That aside the music was beyond amazing. It was hauntingly beautiful in many ways. From the beginning to the end the music was great.
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once u know the story it hits deep
ngl i was confused as hell like the whole movie. timelines jumping, random internet chats, some dude floating in the ocean — i was like wth is going on. but then i looked it up, pieced it together, and damn. this movie hits deep.it’s got that soft, dreamy vibe — like you’re floating in a nightmare but it’s somehow beautiful? the music is ethereal, the beach scenes feel like peace before everything goes to hell, and the whole thing just feels like being trapped in your own head. nothing’s ever said outright, but you feel everything. especially once you realize who’s who online and what actually happened off-screen.
though i wouldnt give it a 10/10 (even though it does have 10/10 vibes IMO) because its not good as the other movies/dramas i watch. but its kinda creative too in a way..
TRUST ME GOOGLE IF U ARE CONFUSED. HELPED ME UNDERSTAND IT!!!
it’s messed up. it’s sad. it’s cold. but it’s also so real. not in a dramatic hollywood way — in a quiet, slow, soul-crushing kind of way. definitely not for everyone, but if you like haunting, broken beauty? this might wreck you a bit.
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Aesthetic, intriguing, needs a trigger warning
Editing was not friendly to someone like me, with minor sensory issues, so I wanted to post this review to share that the flashing white cuts between conversation in the chat rooms were distracting and made my eyes ache. It was better to not pay attention to the chats and transitions between scenes, but I found that I could not follow the story well because of this. If you're prone to seizures, or migraines, I would skip it.Still, I enjoyed the film's theme that associates the love that one has for a musician/music as some kind of escape from reality, leading to disassociation from real world actions and consequences. Not sure what the exact name for this aesthetic is, but the mixing of technology and nature in the editing made for a unique and intriguing experience especially with the reveal as to who the protagonist was talking to in the chat rooms.
Note, I ended up watching this over two days, and it was hard to follow. I found that reading other reviews afterwards jogged my memory of key plot points, so despite a pretty film with a touch of romanticism, it was a very complex film with some arguably unnecessary plot points. Sometimes, we don't need to see all that in one film.
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Spectacular soundtrack with somewhat disheartening plot
Appreciated the melancholic tone and seclusion shots of boys wandering around open grass fields. The soundtrack is fantastic (unfortunately only on youtube music). The film explores potential catalysts for bullying and early social media through the evolution of two troubled adolescent boys. The internet is an escape from their otherwise grim life but ultimately fails as a coping mechanism. Lily Chou Chou was a depressing watch but I find myself ruminating on certain scenes, despite only watching it once.A big portion of the movie revolves around chat room messaging. People with epilepsy beware frequent flashing of text on screen. Runtime too long - had to watch in two sittings.
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