Photo: Hayato Ichihara as Yuichi in Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou
Shunji Iwai's Lily Chou-Chou offers eternal peace. She's ethereal, the rebirth of death (indeed, she was born the moment Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon), and all-powerful, a voice for a pop-cyber culture that feeds on her Björkness. In All About Lily Chou-Chou, fans of the fictional singer use her "amniotic" music to detach themselves from the violence that consumes Japanese culture. Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is obsessed with Lily: He gets busted for shoplifting one of her CDs and engages in endless conversations on the website Liliphilia with fellow Lily-heads, "connecting" with the so-called ether that is Lily, just like he melds into colorful rice fields whenever he listens to Lily sing. While Yuichi is quiet and reserved, his online handle ("philia") suggests a boy erupting with adult emotions, and though his friendship with "blue cat" is elusive it still feels within reach. Such is the dreaminess and possibility the film taps into.
Shunji Iwai's Lily Chou-Chou offers eternal peace. She's ethereal, the rebirth of death (indeed, she was born the moment Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon), and all-powerful, a voice for a pop-cyber culture that feeds on her Björkness. In All About Lily Chou-Chou, fans of the fictional singer use her "amniotic" music to detach themselves from the violence that consumes Japanese culture. Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is obsessed with Lily: He gets busted for shoplifting one of her CDs and engages in endless conversations on the website Liliphilia with fellow Lily-heads, "connecting" with the so-called ether that is Lily, just like he melds into colorful rice fields whenever he listens to Lily sing. While Yuichi is quiet and reserved, his online handle ("philia") suggests a boy erupting with adult emotions, and though his friendship with "blue cat" is elusive it still feels within reach. Such is the dreaminess and possibility the film taps into.
