If the earth perishes. My life will end in summer.
Maybe it would be happier.
Lianmi said.
Memories are slowly pulled into lengthy slow motions. The picture is an endless green wheat field. Pure, almost unreal, clear green. The boy is standing in the middle of the wheat field. White shirt. He lowered his head silently with headphones on. Can't see the expression clearly. The background is Debussy's melancholy and intoxicating music. Slowly and tediously covering the passing years.
The world is an endless firmament beyond the horizon. Green wheat field.
Pastoral is very dazzling.
The film begins with such a bright and clear picture that is striking. Perhaps it will not make people think that this is an extremely cruel youth film. Or maybe we should have learned a thing or two from the sad silence of the boy in the wheat field. This will not be a lighthearted and joyful film.
At this age, the sun and the moon are still no match for the crazy jointing of rice and wheat in the heart. The red heart is a small piece of soft soil, and the tiny sunken particles fall into the moist hotbed to create light and messy patterns. At this point of age, it is no longer green grass and light clouds. Weird thoughts at work. Rootless flowers float in the air, and the vines are intricately intertwined. Just like the word "youth".
All the flamboyant, the bright, the splendid, the painful, the lush, the sad, the wet, the lost... All the comments I have thought of, all the adjectives that are tinged with the juice of youth are all in the poetic years manipulated by Iwai The hustle and bustle is blooming. youth there. It's not a barren and bleak picture, it's not a dazzling and pale past, it's not a scribbled and frivolous story. I know everything I've witnessed. When those teenagers with confused eyes and bright smiles passed through their ignorant and cruel green years. They left the last little shadows in my field of vision, disappearing and disappearing. Only those youths who have been pulled for a long time and have been ravaged by fire are left behind. Desolate and messy scattered all over the place. The green skin burst out in the sunlight, revealing the angular posture and shocking scars. I believe I have witnessed such a silent and grand catastrophe. An underage escape. Those clear and helpless backs in memory. Lily Zhou's empty and confused dome sound. A scene emerges. Continuously.
The boy in the movie. Hasumi Yuichi is still Hoshino Shusuke. There is the same pride and dedication in character. And the difference is. One of them chose obedient silence. The other chose to break out decisively.
Summer in Okinawa. Many things turned out to be destined to end in the dark. Hoshino's transformation makes everything seem abrupt. He began to bully the weak unscrupulously, cruelly and violently hurt the people around him, even Hasumi, who used to be quite close to him.
Regarding Hoshino's transformation, a major turning point in the film, it is inevitably linked to the Okinawa experience. Hoshino's seven hits were innocent and two were lost; during the journey, he witnessed the accidental death of fellow passengers and the hypocrisy of people shiing their responsibilities after the incident; seeing through this material-filled world and how vulnerable life is. Family accident. The departure of my father...maybe it's more than that.
Hoshino Shusuke. A good boy in the eyes of the teacher, a speaker at the school meeting, he is among the best in academic performance, has a good family background, and has a beautiful and gentle mother. It has always been the object of envy and praise from everyone before the arrival of that summer. But who really cares about his inner loneliness. The long-term depression, the grievances and incomprehensible pains that have been accumulated for too long, just exploded when I saw the deep blue sea. That's why he will do things that are unbelievable in the eyes of his comrades. Throwing the money that several people grabbed together before the trip into the sea. Is finally tired of it. Tired of the humble and powerless self who could only escape blindly. Transformation is a preordained fact. The sea is still blue and clear, and the boy's uneasy emotions are hidden in it like a volcano about to erupt.
After the friend's change, Hasumi still chose to remain silent. This gentle boy who is always used to silence. He is a sensitive child, destined to have a keen sense of smell to the surrounding injuries. Not being numb, unable to be numb, but trying desperately to numb himself, so that there will be less sadness pouring out of powerlessness.
When he heard Tsuda, the girl who liked him, say with expectation, "You can protect me!" But there was only anxiety and tension. When he saw the girl he liked, Kuno, being hurt, he couldn't do anything. At that moment, he couldn't help crying, covering his eyes with his palms. Even the sky couldn't bear his sorrow at the moment. The sun shone on his shoulders, drawing a thin halo of despair. Yes. Who will protect whom, and who will save whom? They are all distressed children who are lost in the grass of youth. At any corner, the other party disappears.
Hasumi Yuichi. He was used to standing alone in the green wheat field at waist level, listening to Lily Zhou's empty and low voice. "Isee you, you see me, I see you..." The casual sadness, over and over again, beats in my heart with confused notes. Perhaps unable to fight anything, he can only rush to Lily Zhou's world without hesitation, where there is the pure and flawless sky he wants. Use Lily's music to numb yourself, maybe the world is still beautiful. All hopes, all good dreams. All condensed in that lush green wheat field, until the dazed child stood through the four seasons, the green wheat field turned yellow, and the brown rice and wheat were harvested. His eyes were still sad and confused. The gaze became barren. After all, nothing was left.
Flashing green wheat field.
Scene rotation.
Oblique lens. Azure sky. Shaky picture.
Cut in abrupt black screen. A small line of white words gushing out in the middle. Accompanied by the percussion of the keyboard, word by word emerged. The sudden silence was in sharp contrast with the bright picture in the previous scene, stimulating the already numb nerves in my mind. I have to admire Iwai's narration here, which presents the online world of Hasumi and Hoshino so aptly and truly in front of us. Those days of pure beauty frozen in friendship at the beginning. On that forum full of Lily mysteries. The young minds that were tapped lightly. The confusion and hopelessness that no one can understand. About Lily Zhou. About ether. About life. About the only remaining good and vain firmament that one heart maintains.
"Transparent ether, deeper than anyone else. Only standing and breathing can you experience breathing, breathing. Or falling."
The teenager in the film. Lotus sees. Hoshino. Tsuda. Kuno. Perhaps this is the same sensitive and vulnerable child. Longing to love and be loved. They are all neglected children by their families. Own room, icy green wallpaper. Or the big puppet bear at the head of the bed. Condensing yellow wall lamp. A cool light flickered from the computer screen. What kind of warmth can replace the cold air of an entire room, the suffocating loneliness. Just like the mother Lianjian in the film saw the news of juvenile crime broadcast on TV, proudly and neighbors praised how well-behaved her children are, and the next scene is the slap of anger because of the stealing of the good child in her mouth. The teacher's sigh: "We don't understand them either." Hasumi Rinka took his mother on a bicycle. Weeping faintly came from the back seat. She is mother. Parents think they understand, and the thoughts in their children's hearts are crowded. How can the seemingly non-existent concerns of Su Ri's words and phrases bridge the gap that has long been expanding and difficult to fill with time? Maybe only Lily Zhou. can understand them. Those longing for the cosmic firmament. "Red is the sky of despair. Cyan is the sky of hope." Where is the sky? Slim is yourself.
Lily Chou-Chou. All about Lily Zhou. But it is a film that has nothing to do with Lily Zhou. Lily is just a spiritual sustenance. Hasumi's silence. His kindness and cowardice. Maybe just want to escape. Hoshino's self-indulgence, wanton hurt others. Maybe it's just for fear of being hurt. Kuno's strength, she finally chose to face it indifferently and live calmly. Tsuda's sentence "Please take me away from the sky." is the last word she left to this world. Perhaps she confirmed what Jesus said "only children can enter heaven." Whose fault is it, all of this.
I have seen too many hypocrisy and devastation in the adult world. They are innocently squeezed between the adult world and their childhood. They feel too much warmth and affection, and they can no longer be indifferent and heartless children. However, they have not been assimilated by the people whose hearts have long been numb and indifferent, so they are confused in such an embarrassing situation to find their own value. Often, this search for gain results in a more utter despair. Maybe when they grow up, they will follow the numbness and indifference, follow the busyness, follow others and forget their youthful dreams. But at least not yet. At least now they are still thinking about struggle and resistance, but these seem childish and powerless in the cruel reality, so they can only pin all their good hopes on Lily Zhou. Their firmament, ether, and universe are still blue sky. This is not any specific object, just a yearning, a pursuit, a belief. A kind of vent. Just as we do with music, with words, with chocolate, with ice cream, with whatever you like. Short-term intoxication or long-term self-paralysis, children want to escape from reality in this way. And when they are in this yearning for the sky, when they breed better hopes and illusions again and again, the reality will make them despair, and in the end, the gap between the dream and the reality is enough to force them into the bottomless. abyss.
When Hasumi's Lily Zhou CD was torn apart by Hoshino. When Hasumi held the green apple with the "Blue cat" code in his hand, and when he learned that the "Blue cat" he trusted on the Internet was Hoshino, the eternal silence that finally condensed in the young man's heart broke out, and his last hope was dashed. The sudden onslaught of the storm was mighty. At Lily Zhou's concert, the noisy crowd poured out, noisy pictures, many mouths open, they were shouting, I couldn't hear the sound. Just remember the freeze frame. The background is silent. Hoshino collapsed amid the raucous crowd. No one noticed that the boy behind him was holding a teal apple with a dagger in it, the red liquid covering the "Blue cat" written in black marker.
finally. everything. It's all over.
No one noticed who killed the boy.
Who is it? who killed Hoshino. Kill Tsuda. Maybe Hasumi and Kuno. who is it? killed those young lives.
"All About Lily Zhou". director. Iwai Shunji.
Maybe many people know that he is the "Love Letter". Iwai Shunji. Overly stylized director. Delicate descriptions of his expertise are nuanced. The usual slow motion. Powerful expressive tension. And his never-fading theme "Youth". This is a film that is too depressing and brutal unlike other Iwai's works. This may also condense Iwai's own youthful feelings in it. This film is full of some of the current social problems in Japan. Things like juvenile delinquency, theft, suicide... I inevitably find myself writing this review to avoid mentioning cruelty, consciously or not. Because I have always felt that youth is not extremely cruel, even though Mr. Iwai used all his fantastic colors, beautiful pictures, and beautiful shots, he still unavoidably admitted that this is a cruel gray youth. However, the confusion that the teenagers once had was not caused by you and me.
I can never forget, the same field of wheat. different corners. Teenagers and their Lily Zhou. The sadness of "I wanna be..." is very pure, loneliness and confusion may be destined to meet in the ivory tower. They shouted loudly in the wheat field. Running hard is in vain.
The world is an endless firmament beyond the horizon. Green wheat field.
Pastoral is very dazzling.
Back to the starting point. Nothing has changed. The sky is still obliquely imprinted in my mind, translucent and colorful by the sunlight.
This may be the time everyone has to go through.
Young, flamboyant, confused, bright, sad.
This is a grand youth catastrophe dedicated to us by Shunji Iwai.
Through that green lush. It is a clear blue sky. The blue sky.
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