All about Lily-ChouChou - All about us

"All about Lily-Chouchou" is a movie like no other movies I have watched lately. It is directed by high-reputation director: Shunji Iwai whose other brainchildren are “Swallowtail butterfly” or “Lover letter”.



The movie is shot entirely by a new hi-tech camera Sony 24P digital-cam so there should not be any doubt about the refine quality of images during the movie. There might be special effects here and there but you may not notice because they are meant to give the most realistic still, artistic view; otherwise the movie might fail to portray such poetic photography with no impressive setting, no designer clothes, no first class stars.




Everything is so ordinary and simple that you can find them anywhere anytime around you. A few secondary uniforms, some wrecked bicycles, a school, a middle class family, a garbage dump where kids' gang frequently hangs out and a paddle field, the only place seems to entirely belong to a teenage who cling on to his cd-player most of the time(sound like me).
It is definitely not a movie that you would want to take your boy/girlfriends to at the weekend. No kissing, no comedy, no romance. There are only violence, rape, humiliation, revenge, and regret.
The movie is specially made for US, those who live on Ether.
What exactly is Ether? No specific answer is given through out the movie. It is up to personal interpretation.
For me, Ether is something highly related to one's emotion. It is aura and one’s strong desire of having someone understand it.
Sadly, people do not usually open up as they think they should due to an unreasonable and unsolvable loop of pride and prejudice. People bury their pain, fence themselves from the suffering reality and befriend with music.
Music is their spectacular emancipation from all pains and tears. Family, friends, lovers will disappear one day but music will always be there to feel for you. Music give you the Ether so you know that you alive. Music speaks out for you and at the same time, dries your tears, heals your pain and listens to the stories that you think you could never share with anyone else beside music. Music will never betray you.
People who have never been alone, never been ignored, never been humiliated, never been oppressed or betrayed will never understand this.
Normal society considers the Ether population as a bunch of self-pity but have they ever taken time to listen to the silent scream from these wounded souls?
All they have done are accusing, gossiping, suffocating and propelling those living with Ether to even deeper void of sympathy and love. Everybody needs to be loved. If there is no love, hatred and vengeance will immediately fill up the void. When the consequence takes place, when those living with Ether take their turn to give back what society has thrown up them before, cold-blooded, heartless people dust off their responsibility, moreover, give them the right to be surprised at how terrifying the monsters inside people with Ether are unleashed. They refuse to understand that they themselves have victimized people living on Ether. For all these reasons, people with Ether can only believe in music, even when it has to be a blind belief. Only by this way, they continue living because they know they exist for at least a reason, the Ether.
Honisho is a villain in the movie but I cry for him more than any other characters. He started off as a perfect example of what a young generation should strive for: hard-working, studious, humble, honest and friendly. But people around him doubt his ability, sincerity. The better he tries to be the worst people talk about him. So he gives those people what they really want: violence, gang, rape and all the nasty things that they have imposed in him. He is being fair. He has no fault. The only problem is no one there to help him correct but the Ether music. Ether music after all is only music. (After all, we do not know much about Lily-Chouchou after watching the whole show, which is quite ironic in sense of its main title). It is not human. Human is made to love and be loved. No matter how you love music, one day, it will come to a point where even music cannot help you anymore but still you stay in the delusion that it could. For me, the climax of the movie is when Honisho screaming for help when listening to music. The music overpowers, hiding away his scream, his agony and sinks him to a deeper point beyond any redemption. But it is not the Ether music’s fault either since music so far treats him the better than any living human beings. The only thing we could say is “If only someone was by his side at that moment…”
Honisho’s death is expected. But before he dies, he looks for his last hope of seeing Lily-Chou-chou, who might be the very reason of whom he has become today. Honisho looks lost, but at the same time, hopeful at that second. (Shugo Oshinari gave it a powerful acting). The very next second, he lied down dead on the ground.
Moreover, there are two storylines running simultaneously in the movie, reality and cyber life where Ether seems like the only thing on this earth. Struggling teenagers like Honisho or Yuichi run away from reality to indulge themselves in Ether life. But the longer they live in Ether, the more they tend to hide from reality their true selves. Therefore, it was very surprising and heart-wrenching to find out that Honisho is Blue Cat online. He needs help but he can only call for help in the cyber world where no one can reach the other. Everyone is standing alone by their own.



Some Western movie-critics lay out the theory that Phillia is Yuichi. I strongly oppose to it logically and sentimentally. Why? Watch it yourself and see. There was moment that I also mistook Yuichi for Phillia but the ending seems to say differently. Once again, it is right that Westerners can never have the same mindset as Easterners
One blog entry might never be enough to talk about “All about Lily-Chouchou” in details. And it should not be written down and analyzed in any forms at the first place anyway. It is to be watched and felt. I like this movie very much because during the show, you don’t have to think very much. You feel like you are attending every single event in the movie as a witness but not an outsider. Facts are laid in front of you neatly and clearly like a list of menu. You just need to pick up a dish and you can only feel the real taste once you take a bite of that dish, once you yourself experience it.
"All about Lily-Chouchou" is like bitter chocolate after such sweet cheesecake like "Densha Otoko".