The Cinematheque

“One of the most challenging, complex, and brilliant experiences of the year … [Here,] the undefinable power of music remains the only salvation for those left alienated by an uncaring world … An intensely moving experience.”

Noah Cowan, TIFF

No one has captured the volatility of virtual friendship quite like Iwai Shunji. With unflinching and sometimes brutal clarity, his breakthrough digital epic captures the teen tendency to switch allegiances or mask intentions as seen through the new world of online personae, which develop among young members of an internet chat group devoted to fictional pop artist Lily Chou-Chou. Vocalist Salyu fills the soundtrack as ​“Lily,” whose audio presence sutures the sharp edges of the movie’s aggressive jump cuts—within scenes of school bullying, misogynist threats, and depressive isolation—and across time and locales, as the film shifts between summer in Okinawa and schooling in Ashikaga. Iwai, who also edits, says that the film is partly based on the unforgettable experience of witnessing bullying in school and, later, in the film industry: ​“The worse your experience has been, the bluer the sky looks. There’s a lot of that in All About Lily Chou-Chou.”

In Japanese and Okinawan with English subtitles

“Iwai is at the head of one of the great movements in world popular culture … Insofar as middle school is strange, [the film] is awash in strangeness, a poem that details what it’s like to be 13 at the end of a millennium.”

Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

“Essential viewing … Shinoda Noburo’s sublime camerawork makes the best case yet for the digital [format] … The film could be a companion piece to Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s brilliant Pulse, a more sinister yet equally haunting exploration of contemporary [alienation].”

Michael Koresky, Film Comment

“I finally saw this movie while editing We’re All Going to the World’s Fair … I was stunned by the similar territory it explores [of] a peaceful ethereal zone in the music of Lily Chou-Chou, and on the fan forums they post on.”

Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow)