All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001)

Year: 2001 Director: Shunji Iwai Runtime: 146 minutes Country: Japan Language: Japanese with English subtitles Rating: NC16 2K RESTORATION Synopsis Yūichi (Hayato Ichihara) is a withdrawn teenager just starting junior high school. Tormented by his once friend turned bully, Shūsuke (Shugo Oshinari) and plagued by his own loneliness, the only solace he finds is in the music of enigmatic pop star Lily Chou-Chou and her fansite Lili-philia which he runs. On this website Yūichi expresses not just his own fandom but his deepest emotional struggles and sparks a friendship with the anonymous user Blue Cat. As the community around him spirals into delinquency, angst and violence Yūichi confronts his complex relationship with Shūsuke whose life runs eerily parallel. Directed by Shunji Iwai who loosely based the titular character on Faye Wong, All About Lily Chou-Chou is a lyrical cult classic that has continued to resonate with generations of viewers who find themselves increasingly isolated in the internet age. Shot on early digital formats, the film was made at the dawn of mass technological change and observes the ways the internet irreversibly transformed how we interact with one another. “Pain can take you to prison. The ether can set you free.”