‘All about Lily Chou-Chou’, The mythical score of a fictional singer

Lily Chou-Chou is the only salvation for Yuichi, an anxious 8th grader who sees the enigmatic musician as his goddess. According to online message boards, her ethereal voice carries an invisible substance fans call ‘the ether’, virtually omnipresent and capable of purifying life from pain.

With Shunji Iwai’s illusive cinema, the airy soundtrack of 2001 film All About Lily Chou-Chou evokes the solitude experienced by Japan’s disaffected youths. Yuichi struggles to connect with others, but as he waits to be transcended at Lily Chou-Chou’s big Tokyo concert, the film’s spacious, misty cinematography —of hushed skies and countryside roads— depicts the effects of escapism.

A Secret Elegy

Shunji Iwai’s hazy, atmosphere-led filmography can capture social realities through his subtle poetics, but his relatable narratives are always encapsulated with darker elements. In spite of a list of awards that could compare him to Takeshi Kitano, his cinema is unconventional, exemplified in disjunctive cuts, ambivalent plots, and a revelling in naivety.

Set in the muted rural landscapes of Tochigi Prefecture, All About Lily Chou-Chou’s story is particularly vague, as if to play with its own strange emptiness. Real life is split between the virtual, where Yuichi (as ‘philia’) oversees Lily Chou-Chou’s online fan rooms. Bumbling text dialogues render the awkward hesitancy of early digital communication. While the online identity of other characters are left for viewers to speculate, Lily Chou-Chou —embodying the ‘ether’ herself– is never seen on camera.

In fact, Shunji Iwai had adapted his movie from an ‘internet novel’ he had instigated in 2000, providing characters to an online community to which contributions were posted on a message board. Though Lily Chou-Chou is a fictional character, the elaborate backstory created for her lead to the production of the film’s cult-status soundtrack, delivered by the singer Salyu prior to her debut.

Restless yet thoroughly dreamy, All About Lily Chou-Chou encapsulates the tragedies of adolescence through the struggle to cope with life’s strange voids. But tuning into the films’ delicate charm, we are transported into a transparent beyond.

All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001), a movie directed by Shunji Iwai and available to rent and purchase from Film Movement.