*Contains Spoilers*
The movie, released in 2012, is about plastic surgery and the dark side of the entertainment industry. The lead, Lilico (Erika Sawajiri) is a looks-obsessed model in Japan at the height of her career. As with many celebrities, her good looks are manmade, carved with a scalpel. However, her surgeon is unscrupulous, dealing with dead body parts. Hence, the patients have to rely on medicine for the rest of their lives to prevent their bodies from rejecting the parts used, the rejection of which causes the body to show black marks ala gangrene.
Lilico is a rude, egoistic, manipulative character.. Which I suppose is kind of believable when played by Erika since she was basically blacklisted from the industry for being rude and bitchy. (I never watched 1 Litre of Tears, so I didn't have to rid myself of any "but she was so precious and innocent then!" feelings.) At that time in 2007, I saw the video of her basically killing her career in a few minutes, so it wasn't any stretch of the imagination to believe she was the character she was playing. Lilico sleeps with powerful men to get her way -- I'm not accusing Erika of doing the same but I do think she may be a bit desperate after 5 years' hiatus and a divorce. After all, she'd never done nude scenes before, and she chose her comeback to do so. Plus all her nude photoshoots after her scandal, it seems like she basically had to use her body to get back into work. In that sense, plus what is known of her personality, there seems to be more than one parallel to be drawn with Erika herself.
However, I found that like a large majority of Japanese actors, she over-acted. The way she tried to make herself look vain, uncaring, etc etc were all so exaggerated I found it quite irritating. Subtlety woman! Maybe it's the director's fault since Japanese movies, like anime, all seem to call for caricature-like actions.
In terms of visuals, this to me is a pretty stunning movie. No seriously, I wanted to GIF at least 60% of it. Erika is gorgeous, if tired-looking. The sets are beautiful and colorful, like most Japanese music videos are. Since Erika is a model, there is a plethora of photoshoots with beautiful wigs, clothes, backgrounds and props. One scene felt like a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu video, no joke.
There is nudity, which I found unnecessary -- but this is a grimy movie after all.
Music is... interesting, a lot of opera. CGI is pretty bad but not terrible.
What I was most interested in, was the overt symbolism in the movie. Call it what you may, perhaps they were meant to be artistic or thematic, but my Illuminati-signs-spotting eyes caught a few things which stood out to me.
Firstly, in the movie poster shown here - Erika covers her eye (One Eye/All-Seeing Eye symbolism), and there is a blue butterfly (Project Monarch) (Could also symbolize rebirth, from an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly after surgery) on her hand. The butterflies also appear in the movie more than once.
I also noticed leopard print (Beta Programming) a few times, and the color red (symbolizes everything from love to sex, to rage... There is a lot on colors but I won't cover them. I'm just pointing out all I spotted. It's like a Spot-The-MK/Illuminati-Symbolism-game. I will say though that red was used mostly in sexual scenarios, so it is probably alluding to sex) was highly prominent.
There were also many mirrors (used to disorient or symbolize alters) used, as well as more than one suicide (sacrifice). In one scene when the Lilico had drugs, she suddenly saw many butterflies (Monarch) and then one large eye (All-Seeing Eye) opened on a big strawberry prop.
She also has an agent that she is very reliant upon, whom she calls Mama. She cut ties with her family for her career, and Mama appears to be her handler; she keeps repeating that she "created her" (her alter). (Oh and I myself though Mama looked a lot like Erika -- I thought she was Lilico's real mother to be honest. Turns out it might be on purpose, someone else in the movie mentioned that their younger selves looked alike. Stage "momager" living vicariously through her protege? Was the surgery done specifically to yield similar looks?) Her rival, who is a major reason for her downward spiral, takes photoshoots side by side with her -- the industry loves doing this to pass power on (Britney and Madonna's kiss etc etc).
The movie culminates with Lilico's ritualistic suicide in front of an army of photographers with disorienting flashing lightbulbs. (Anyone watched the Britney episode in South Park? Basically the same thing.) Hollywood, the media and basically the entertainment industry love to glorify suicide, probably for their ritual sacrifices (yeah I know I sound paranoid and mad right now but there are too many weird "coincidences" to ignore. Like the Elisa Lam case, I'm still wondering if anything else will be found out about it.).
So. She stabs herself in the eye with a knife (more one-eyed symbolism! They really love it don't they). Still, like the hungry vultures they are, the army of photographers remain unstoppable, probably salivating with money signs in their eyes right now. Think about how much the photos of her mental breakdown are worth! Remember the big group of paparazzi stalking Britney when she shaved her hair? More, more! Gimme more!
Bad cgi blood drips from her eye and then red feathers start (they talk about wings a few times in the show and one guy also calls her Tiger Lily but I'm not sure of the significance of this--pretty, but tainted with black spots(from the side effects of her PS or from "bugs within")? Perhaps...) to shower down to the tunes of the Blue Danube Waltz. (the juxtaposition between the gory scene and the cheerful carefree tune reminded me of a Clockwork Orange.)
Like countless celebrities and artists who were mocked or unknown in life, she is once again revered in "death" after being picked apart by the very same public before. Live Fast and Die Young, right Ke$ha? The 27 club gets to live on Forever Young without having to see their skin turn grey and loose.
Oh, and I forgot to mention she has sex with both her female assistant and her assistant's boyfriend. That's how confined and claustrophobic their lives actually are; they can't go out in public at all, usually do not even communicate with their families, have no true friends and are only able to befriend others in the industry, usually their staff. Using Britney as an example again, recall how she seduced the paparazzo Sam Lufti and then asked him to be her manager? And again with Jason Trawick. They leave their former lives behind and become untouchable idols, but at what price? To be used and disposed of for the next It girl.
http://aramatheydidnt.livejournal.com/3808647.html
Lastly, Sawajiri was reported to have start acting erratically and strangely like her character after shooting was wrapped. Method acting? When you play dark characters, it tends to be hard to go back to normal. The description of her symptoms suggest bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression. Please don't let her get messed up like Amanda Bynes. I seriously wonder if all her characters on the Amanda Show were programmed into her system as alters back then. She keeps wearing different wigs on Twitter and just being overall strange these days. She types pretty coherently in her tweets although they have pretty weird content, but her behavior and photos just do not suggest a mentally sound person, though she seems well enough to threaten lawsuits on everyone.
View her crazy video here:
I'm Sucking On A Sour Patch Kid Listening To Music Getting Ready For Tonight :D 🍒
Aye.
I give the movie 6.5/10. Her over-acting got to me, and the 2 hour-long film dragged along a fair bit (possibly cos of lousy buffering speed on my Internet though) but I give the director props for making the film pretty. I can't exactly say how, but I feel like the film could have been executed better and actually had the potential to be a cult classic. I might like it more on my 2nd viewing.
