Thursday, June 08, 2006
i'm disturbed. well kind of. just finished watching another dvd my sister brought back, 'All about Lily Chou-Chou'. i must admit that when i first saw the title, i thought it certainly was another one of those joy-luck club type of movies depicting some sort of tribulation filled life of an asian migrant in the states or something like that. interestingly enough, it was hardly that. the title in fact, doesnt even give a hint as to what to expect from the film at all.
this in fact, is a japanese movie, a 'coming of age' movie or so described on the front cover. it is as with most japanese art house type of movies, a sort of exageration of the life of a 14 year old in japan. well, at least i hope it is indeed an exageration. judging by how i'm feeling right now, it doesnt take a genius to know that this is a relatively dark film in some sense. it isnt as graphic as say for instance "irreversible", in fact, its only rated nc-16 for some sexual references. but the ideas and the concepts touched are so real that i find it hard to stop trying to comprehend some of them.
i guess the best description of the movie can be summed up from the synopsis that is printed behind the dvd case: 'all about lily chou-chou is a poetically disturbing look at the terror and isolation that characterizes today's japanese youth'. and mind you the 'terror' is really quite something us singaporeans will in some sense (thankfully) never be able to fully comprehend.
i've read a few online reviews and comments about the show, it's rather mixed i must say. but the main complaints are the same: that the show cuts in and out of scenes very abruptly that it actually confuses one after a while. alot of reviwers also complained about the lack of identity or rather identifiable features for each character. it's is true that for the first 20 minutes or so of the 140 minute film, i had trouble even distinguising a few characters from the other, but it was pretty alright after that. i guess most of the reviewers that had this problem were probably non-asians. but other than that, i found the show to be insightful, thought provoking (very), and bitterly poetic. alot of people agreed on how excruciating beautiful the backdrop of the rural japanese town was in stark contrast to the on-goings of the show. many of the show's frank and brutally honest scenes were shot amongst lush green rices fields that somehow gave one the sense of contrast and for me, heightened the severity of it all. i liked the show and would most certainly watch it again soon, not in the next 24 hours though, i need to give myself a break.
it is kind of refreshing, in a very odd sense, to catch such shows once in a while. once in a while.
{2:37 AM}
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