All+About+Lily+Chou-Chou

//**All About Lily Chou-Chou - Shunji Iwai (2001)**//

// All About Lily Chou-Chou // is thriller film both written and directed by Japanese director Shunji Iwai. The film revolves around the tough middle school life fulled with peer pressure of a regular Japanese teenager Yuichi, his relationship with the class bully Hoshino, and how the fictional singer Lily Chou-Chou has had an impact oh their lives. On the surface of the film, the main character, Yuichi, wants escape from Hoshino's control. However the theme of the film, what the character actually needs, is finding acceptance and peace. Throughout the film, Yuichi constantly expresses his need for acceptance by finding peace by escaping Hoshino's control and listening to Lily Chou-Chou's music. This film is portrayed in a very impressionistic tone. When the audience watches the film, pieces of past and characters' ongoing storyline are put together in a way that it is hard to comprehend and follow along.

Lighting is used in the film to indirectly contribute to the theme of finding acceptance and peace by emphasising what is and is not peace and acceptance.

In the bullying scene, the light is coming from below and shining up to the characters. This is an example of underlighting or halloween lighting, which is telling the audience that these two teenagers are unholy. This use of underlighting conveys a sense of unbalance, and shows that this is the opposite from the theme, which is finding acceptance and peace. In this case, these two teenagers were sent by Honshino to humiliate Yuichi and make him take his clothes off; which makes them antagonists of the film. Yuichi is being bullied in this scene so he is not at the state of acceptance and peace, hence the use of lighting is very dark and unnatural. The scene on the field, however, is the opposite from the scene above that shows the unnatural and unbalance. The orange tone lighting used in this scene is very warm as it shines on the field when Yuichi is just standing alone in the middle, immersing himself into the world of Lily Chou-Chou's music. The lighting in this scene indirectly supports the theme by creating a comforting atmosphere by the soft touch of the sunlight, telling the audience that Yuichi is in peace by listening to Lily Chou-Chou's music and is accepted in the world of Lily Chou-Chou'd music.

The tone of the film is greatly contributed by sound due to the correct choice of music. The tone in this film is very impressionistic, which means that the in order for the audience to feel this tone, the music also has to be impressionistic. Throughout the film, a large portion of the instrumental music that flows in the background when Yuichi is in the field or when they are in school are pieces by impressionist composer Claude Debussy. The impressionist music is especially affective in the scene where Yoko is raped by Hoshino's gang. That particular scene is supposed to be extremely dark because a young school girl is getting raped, however the music that is played in the background of that scene is the smooth impressionistic piece of Debussy. This indirectly emphasises the theme, finding peace, by showing an ironic scene with music of Yoko not being at peace. This piece is also ironic to Yoko because this is the piece she has been playing throughout the film, but it turns out to be the background music of her rape. This choice is made in order to emphasise the fact that there is no peace in these teenagers' lives and in this film.

The Mes-En-Scene plays an important role in the film by conveying the theme of the film. These two scenes are shot at the same setting, while one occurred during the beginning of the film, the other was near the end of the film. Although both scenes take place in the same field, both the content of the field and the emotional context is extremely different. In the first scene, the director made the choice to shot it when the plants are still green, and everything seemed very lively, including the image in the scene which is Yuichi riding his mom home on his bicycle. In the scene towards the end, both Yuichi and Honshino has lived through a lot, so their emotional content is very furious and confused at the same time. In that scene, the Iwai made the different choice of filming it in the exact same field where all the crops are dead. This symbolises to the audience that everything and everyone who was once so fulled with livelihood is now dying. This also foreshadows Honshino's death in the end by seeing him scream in a field fulled of dead crops. This choice is made by the director to convey the theme of finding acceptance and peace because clearly there is peace in the first scene but non in the second. By using the same setting but different content within the setting gives an emphasis on the contrast Iwai is trying to show the audience.

The main editing technique that is used in this film is the flashback to the start of Yuichi and Honshino's friendship and the typing that is happening on the Lily Chou-Chou fan site. This contributes to the tone of the film by leaving trails of unfinished thoughts, just like an impressionist artist or musician would do. A main portion of the story is based on the flashback that is narrated by the words Yuichi types on the screen. This flashback shows the audience the beginning of Yuichi and Honshino, the time period Yuichi describes as rose-like. The purpose of this flashback is to show that Yuichi and Honshino were one best friends, and when Honshino had no friends, Yuichi was always there for him. This helps to show contrast later on in the film when Honshino changes his personality and becomes the head of their gang and the class bully. The flashback also shows their summer trip and how that affected Honshino's change into the person who he became. The cut between the ongoing plot development and the flashback contributes to the impressionistic tone of the film because it leaves a trial of unfinished thoughts for the audience. For example, when it cuts into the flashback, how Yuichi ended the bullying night was not shown, instead it cut to a completely new idea, so that is similar to how a impressionist artist would paint in one color, then switch to the next without finishing one color, and may come back to it later.

The cinematography is very interesting because a majority of the shots in this film are filmed in a way that to the audience it seems like a hand-held camera that is filming because of how the shaking of the camera matches with the character's movements. This aspect of cinematography contributes to the tone, similar to editing, by leaving trails of unfinished thoughts. For example during the entire trip, although it is shown that they brought one camera to fim their trip, the screen was also shaking as if another camera is filming it when the prop camera isn't in the scene. This leaves trails of unfinished thoughts because sometimes, for example when they were swimming in the water, the camera moves so abruptly that it is hard for the audience to see what is going on, so therefore what actually happened is left to the imaginations of the audiences. Another interesting shot in the film is the shot when Shiori committed suicide and was lying dead on the ground. First of all, in this scene, the camera is placed at an angle that it is looking down on Shiori, so this is an example of a bird's eye shot. This shot conveys to the audience that fate having complete control and power of Shiori and relates back to the theme of finding acceptance and peace as Shiori may be, finally, at peace. The camera movement of this shot is also very interesting because it is constantly pushing downwards onto Shiori's body, which can symbolise that fate and destiny has been pushing on her so much that she is suffocating, hence she commits suicide. This camera movement creates tension between the audience and Shiori's dead body by forcing them to stare straight at it, and is getting closer and closer.

In this film, Iwai uses effective lighting, sound, mes-en-scene, editing and cinematography to convey the theme of finding acceptance and peace and the impressionistic tone. Each and ever aspect of this film is used both directly and indirectly to support this theme or tone, so the audience can get a fuller understanding of what exactly Iwai is speaking through his film //All About Lily Chou-Chou//.