ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU REV MOVIE

I'm probably going to rewatch it this week wth this in mind. Just because I have a hard time believing a situation can exist that could justify what he did to Kuno doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean he had to like it, and it seems like that was exactly what you were getting at for the explanation behind all of the scenes of Hoshino in the field listening to Lily and screaming.

You even explicitly say that the director/writer does not defend Hoshino's actions, just that he simply is also having trouble in life and doesn't like what he's doing.

ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU REV MOVIE

I was at a party and I brought the movie up, along with my feelings and your response, and it helped me digest your view a little better. Thanks for taking the time to respond - I'm guessing this movie isn't very well-known to this sub, so I'm appreciative to have received this comment!ДЄt first, it felt like you were saying 'yeah, but he's a troubled teen too,' and that you were defending him and the director's/writer's choice as a result, and I was still having trouble accepting it. The movie isn't condoning his acts, or even forgiving him for them, but it is necessary to show the he too is troubled because he's still a teenager and not an adult. Without this look into his character, the message would've gone from 'Teenage life can often be cruel, awful and impossible to understand' to 'Evil dudes fuck your shit'. There's no real reason for his creutly, neither he, nor we nor the other character understand it. His motivations are kept in the dark for a reason, after nearly drowning, he suddenly becomes cruel and unsympathetic to other people, but everyone around him understand him as little as we do. But he's not happy, in fact he's (like the others) a scared and confused teenager who certainly didn't start to be so horrid. An easy situation for us to understand and relate to.

Despite being an awful person, he's not exactly happy with himself or the situation he's in, if he was, then he'd just be a cruel villain and that would be the end of it. The film isn't putting the characters on the same moral level, but the scene with Hoshino is important because it gives both nuance and depth to his character. But just like when Tsuda remarked 'Do you think he'd still use me if I got fat?', she made herself 'unappealing' as a form of taking control of the situation. Side note: I get that Kuno shaving her head was a form of telling Hoshino fuck you, because you have to assume the video of the rape would be used to blackmail her into prostitution. I thought it was a spectacular film this part aside, I just can't shake the residual feeling of Hoshino being just as victimized as Yuichi or Tsuda when he was a main cause of the worst shit that happened. I would love to hear other people's views on this movie. Maybe I'm missing something or maybe I'm misinterpreting something. Like he was just as much a victim of this and should be equally sympathized with. And I wouldn't have an issue if I was meant to dislike his character, but because the ending is about all of them having shitty lives and banding together through music, I felt they were putting Hoshino on equal footing as the rest. But I didn't feel an ounce of sympathy for him after what happened with Kuno. They keep going back to the shot of Hoshino alone in the field with his headphones, screaming his head off because life was so awful.

The tone for the ending of the film made it seem like all of the main characters were victims of this awful situation and as a result, have been living awful lives themselves, and their way of coping was through music. I despised Hoshino and his crew for this. The thing that has been bothering me is that I feel the telling people to rape, the people actually raping, and the filming of the raping of Kuno to be on a different level of fucked up. I think it worked for the numerous beatings, forced public masturbation, blackmailed prostitution, forced naked mud swimming, etc. I get that the movie was about these fucked-up youths who all managed to keep their head above the water through the music of Lily Chou-Chou, and I think it did pull those things off. I tried doing a bit of research after finishing the film, and I'm starting to feel like maybe I am the only one who feels this way. That being said, I'm really struggling with the tone of the movie by the end. I found the cinematography to be stunning, I loved the music and the way it was used in conjunction with the plot, and I enjoyed the use of superimposing text on the screen for the website everyone was using. Let me get the positives out of the way quickly.