I can't remember the last time I watched something that was leaning more on the artistic side of film, I used to watch films just like this one almost every single day providing I could find the material itself. The other month I stumbled across a Letterboxd list that summed up a series of recommendations for those films I used to love, some I had known and seen before, others I hadn't. I felt a bit nostalgic for the simple days where I'd be so heavily influenced by such films, and it made me want to start going through the films in the list. One of the first being a film I have heard about throughout the years but never gave the time to watch: All About Lily Chou-Chou. Most of the films I would watch back then were pertaining to New Wave Hong Kong cinema, or films from previous decades starting with the 60s and going back. I'm not sure what it is that stopped me from watching this film throughout all of these years, but I guess sometimes we watch things at the right time when it seems to actually speak to us in some manner. Perhaps in my case it's to feel that photography and cinematic inspiration again! And with the days inside lately due to the poor weather of Tbilisi, I decided to sit down over a cup of coffee and let the hour pass.
It's common within Japanese media that there's a nostalgic glance over youth, everything is oriented around youth. High school themes, romance, and the feeling of being lost with all the free time one has when they're younger and not yet full of the burden of things like rent, careers, and bills. It makes sense given Japan's tough working environment to which it still holds the salary man culture. Rose-tinted glasses displaying the better days of youth in comparison to the present. All About Lily Chou-Chou came out in 2001, and this was a time where Japan's animation world was just starting to pick up a bit more, while the nation's industry was on the brink of its economic decline after previous decades of booming. I think it's important to understand the context, to look into the environment to which the film was released in, as well as the world it paints within its present. That is to say it is another film on the concept of youth, nostalgia, and the ways in which people are inspired by the arts. Primarily music in the case of this film, and how music bends one's emotion and influences. I wasn't sure what I was getting into prior to watching this, however. I was uncertain as to whether it could be something I come out enjoying. But there was only one way to find out, and it was nice to feel that interest in film returning again after such a lengthy break.
All About Lily Chou-Chou
What helps with this feeling of nostalgia is the near emptiness of much of the film. Either taking place in empty long hallways and long green fields of tall grass. Like the world exists purely for its main characters with few else within it. I mentioned the aspects of being dreamlike, but you really feel it in such scenes where the characters are isolated from the rest of the world. The camera either fixed or moving in a dreamlike state as it follows those characters around the environment, almost like the viewer is there with them just roaming throughout and around like some ghostly figure that isn't quite known to the characters. From a directing and cinematography point of view, it is a really beautiful film. I don't think that's enough to really propel it forward into being 'good film' territory though. There's still a few problems with other aspects. Primarily the story which lingers on a bit too much, feeling like the story is stuck in repetition. But there are moments that feel emotional, where the protagonist is sort of stuck, lingering in the middle of nowhere appreciating the music, standing in the tall grass far from the chaos of the city. But yeah, for a film with a two hour runtime, I do think it could've been reduced a little and had more impact had its scenes been a bit more of a fleeting moment.
The story wasn't bad though, it really did capture that feeling of loneliness. The emotional connection to music and the want to find a place to belong, which ended up being mutual and found within each other. It captured that feeling of youth well, the troubled friendships in which boys run around being boys. The spaces we socialise in that end up holding the strongest memories. Even that anger that is often kept idle within, and how in youth it suddenly explodes and becomes out of control. It's certainly an emotional film, and done quite well. Just slightly lacking in some areas. With much of what it needed to say having been said quite early on. It was nice to see such a story though, it did revive that interest in such films again. And it's definitely a film that'll invoke some odd feelings in modern audiences with its early 2000s Japan atmosphere, perhaps only now having more of an impact on people as everyone feels the need to remember such times and return to such simplicity.