Pic, ever so gradually, fills in the specifics of Yuichi’s life, largely devoted to the usual travails of junior high school and stealing CDs with his buddies.
For almost a reel, Iwai bombards the screen with email messages between fans of (fictional) pop idol Lily Chou-Chou, and Yuichi swaying in the rice fields as he listens to the singer’s semi-Bjork-like trip-hop tunes. Opening immediately sets up the movie’s long, emotional arc by immersing the viewer in the world of 14-year-old Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara), who lives in a rural town with his mom, her boyfriend and the latter’s son. Though hardly noticeable, the whole picture was shot on high-grade DV, aside from two sequences (a holiday and a rape) clearly filmed on a regular Handicam. Though Japan reps the most extreme example of this electronic youth culture, pic’s observations are universal.įilm has been long in the works, starting as a draft script (inspired by Iwai watching a concert by pop diva Faye Wong in Hong Kong), then an unfinished novel, then an interactive novel fed by contributions to a Web site (Lily-holic) created by Iwai, and finally this movie. Where “Swallowtail” was a cheeky, wild-ride critique of Japan’s consumerist, yen-worshipping culture, “Lily” goes one step further, showing teenagers in thrall to virtual emotions generated by pop idols and fan sites.
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