To celebrate Shunji Iwai’s new film, Kyrie No Uta from this year, we will screen two of his films to get into the mood. Shunji Iwai started making films in the 90's in Japan, a time when people felt a pervasive sense of depression towards the coming millennium, and cultural and political sterility. Many of the characters in his films struggle with friendships, personhood, and are stuck in a kind of violence and passivity. They don't have the will to fight, but keep murmuring to themselves, "where am I going?", "what do we do now?". However, it is somewhat different from what we know as an existential crisis. This is because what Shunji portrays is not a coming of age but a choice of people to be in darkness by embracing their failure, pain and loss. Thus his stories wake up our inner child who was a romantic and sentimental creature, with a tendency towards solitude. And asking after each other:

お元気(げんき) ですか。
How are you?
私(わたし) は 元気(げんき) です。
I am doing well.

All About Lily Chou-Chou (リリイ・シュシュのすべて)
Shunji Iwai | 2001 | Japan | 146’ | EN subs

All About Lily Chou-Chou tells a tragic story of friendship and teenage betrayal. Due to the discontinuous timeline, it is hard to grasp the full story. Insecure teenage fear fuelled by ignorance of society might seem as reality bites, but the film portrays the most horrific subjects like rape, murder and bullying combined with fragments of memories and emotions. In this film, music is the strongest medium through its emotional outpouring. Debussy, Lily Chou-Chou, Wilco, LCD Soundsystem, The Smiths and Talking Heads linger around the souls who need a friend.

There will be food (onigiri and taiyaki) in between the two films.