 Day 4, all about Lily Shushu, suggested by Franklin Distaltzweigen, seconded by 17 people, you complete sickos. Oh my god. It's long past the point where I should be surprised by how cruel East Asian and especially Japanese cinema can be to kids. Like, I've joked about it before on this very YouTube channel, but every once in a while I see something that just hits different. And the missing object in that sentence is kids. I've never seen Harmony Corinne's 1995 film of that name. He may have made one of my favorites of all time, but I know the reputation. I've read a plot summary, and I just don't need that shit in my life, you know? Then again, I didn't really need Shunji EY's all about Lily Shushu in my life either, but here we are. I mean, the suggestion did come with some content warnings. It just neglected to mention that the people involved were 14. I'd never heard of the film before, but it had enough of an impact that the fictional musician in his title released a real album seven years later, that 14 more years later still has 38,000 listeners on Spotify as well as her own real Wikipedia page. Korean shoegaze artist Paranole released an album last February that nostalgizes back on the early aughts and literally opens with a sample from the film. Clearly it means something to people. Or at least it left a mark. Coming into it later and finding this fandom makes me feel like one of the unseen characters happening upon the lily-feely of fan forum that the very 2000 denigital cinematography frequently cuts to messages from. At least two of the most prominent members are central characters in the film, and they use the board as a way to get out feelings abstracted through the lyrics of their idol, the aether that she sings about and through. What they're saying generally doesn't relate to the actual events of the film, which can make trying to keep track of what's happening on screen and the virtual conversations playing out a little mind-bending as you're being pulled in very different directions. But at the same time, if you miss a bit of one or the other, it doesn't really matter. This is a movie where there's kind of a lot going on, but not that much actually happens. Like there are a handful of key events depicted on screen, but a lot of very significant moments for these characters happen between cuts. People can change drastically due to events that we only hear about or sometimes not even that. It makes following the overall thread difficult, but it doesn't necessarily diminish the film's effect. Our protagonist, Yuichi Hasumi, is a bad person by proxy who ends up facilitating genuinely evil shit for others who are bad by nature. Shusuke Hoshino is the key figure there whose transformation from loser to street-up psychopath drives the story to its darkest places, though it is dark right from the start. Like the first thing we learn in this movie is that Lily Shushu was born at the moment John Lennon was killed. This has no bearing on anything, but it's important that you think about death from the word go. Before the 30-minute mark, two kids force Yuichi to masturbate in front of them in an old junkyard while they throw rocks because they think he tattled after getting in trouble for stealing a Lily Shushu CD, something his mom beats him for in the presence of two teachers. This movie is nearly two and a half hours long, so think about how much fucking worse it has to get when Hoshino is still a good guy at that point in the story. Fortunately, none of it is especially graphic. Most of the violence feels kind of lifeless, like the kids don't really want to be doing it. Part of this could be an inexperienced cast for most of the principles Lily Shushu was one of, if not their first feature film, but it also feels kind of intentional, like everyone is just going through the motions because none of it matters. And there are some moments where suddenly shit gets real and they feel different, though without ever feeling like we're now watching a different movie. The whole thing just has a vibe, and maybe that's where the nostalgic reverence comes from because it feels incredibly of its time by looking incredibly of its time. It's kind of funny that all about Lily Shushu was shot on the same camera that gave us Star Wars Episode II. The Sony HDW-F900 was the first serious digital cinema camera and Lily Shushu was the first Japanese film to use it. But instead of properly lit sets, we've got a ton of scenes lit naturally or actively unnaturally, with lights clearly just mounted on the cameras over exposing the faces of the actors. Frankly, it looks bad, but not really in a bad way. EOI committed to the aesthetic, accentuating the flaws of the new technology rather than trying to hide them. It is not exactly documentary-like, but it grounds the experience in a moment. The turn of a millennium where no one really knew what was coming, but we all felt that it was big. And so we hid behind anonymous cries for help, and when those inevitably did nothing, lashed out in the real world against anyone it could, committing extreme acts of cruelty. Because who gives a fuck? I guess not much has changed. 6.5 out of 10. Thank you so much for watching, and thank you particularly to my patrons, my mom, Hammery and Marco, Kat Saracota, Benjamin Schiff, Anthony Cole, Magnolia Denton, Elliott Fowler, Greg Lucina, Kojo, Phil Bates, Willow, Ion the Sword, Riley Zimmerman, Claire Bear, Taylor Lindy's, and the folks who'd rather be read than said. If you liked this video, that's great, my arm fucking hurts. If you want to see more, please subscribe, suggest in the comments, whatever. I don't know, guys. Bye.