Love & Pop

[Julien Seveon]

I guess the main question here is whether a director should point a 
judgement on the subject he's directing.
In my eyes, when the subject is linked to society or politics, one can not 
filmed without getting involved with the story. For example (I know it 
doesn't have any connection with the movies we're discussing here, but 
you'll see my point) : is it possible to direct a movie on Nazi or Japanese 
concentration camps without getting involved ?
With Love and Pop we're dealing with the same question, can someone direct a 
movie about high school prostitution without denouncing it ? I find it 
intolerable to just watch a movie on such a story and find out that the 
director doesn’t express his feelings on the subject.
For instance Bounce Ko Gals is more interesting because the director refuse 
to stand aside. He takes part in his movie, without being Manichean, and 
points out that there’s one serious problem in Japanese society.
Anno doesn’t seem annoy by this, he just shot a story about a girl who wants 
a necklace (I don’t remember exactly what) and her means to get it. And he 
seems to find normal that the girl sell herself for it.

About the ending where the girls are “walking fiercely towards their future, 
their hair flying in the wind”, although similar in both movies doesn’t have 
the same significance at all. In Love and Pop it means that the girls are 
ready to prostitute herself for what they want, and that they’re going to 
get what they want in their lives.
In Bounce Ko Gals, this scene is rather a kind of dedication to the Woman 
Liberation Front :  you better not mess with them, because they’re not going 
to let men control their life.

>From: "Naguib Razak" <naj at dmt.com.my>
>Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
>Subject: RE: Love & Pop
>Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 23:13:41 +0800
>
>Julien,
>your criticism of Anno and Love& Pop's ending seem a bit unfair, even to 
>one
>who hasn't seen the film nor read the book ...
>
>if there was one thing i didn't like about Bounce Ko Gals (which i liked
>very much) was in fact the ending, and for the very same reason you 
>denounce
>Anno and his film ... it featured, as far as i can remember, the girls also
>"walking fiercely towards their future, their hair flying in the wind" ...
>in fact they were even skipping and giggling oh-so-innocently in that
>precious and supposedly telling technique of slow-motion ... i could only
>have imagined that the director (or the producer's invisible hand) was
>selling out the film for a pleasant "commercial" ending at this point ...
>
>in spite of this, i'd grant Bounce Ko Gals credit as a rather good film in
>being courageous enough not to rely on sympathetic stereotypes like
>innocence and victimisation (except for that end bit, of course) to gently
>relate its tragic and disturbing story and give a fair exposition & insight
>of a cultural reality (ill or providential) in today's Japan ...
>
>considering this, i'd hesitate to jump up and wag the critical finger at
>Love & Pop for being, at most, politically incorrect ... having at least 
>sat
>through 13 hours of Anno Hideaki's other work (i.e. Evangelion) i'd say the
>director does frequently tap and manipulate the visual fetishes of his
>audience (mini-skirts, mecha and all), but he does so without discarding 
>his
>earnestness in exploring a very mature and relevant subject matter ... in
>fact, it may just be the fact that he is getting so intimate with the
>subject matter that he is able to capture their spirit genuinely on his
>visuals (animated or no) ... that he fails, or rather refuses to become
>judgmental whilst telling the girls' story doesn't make him irresponsible
>nor indulgent ... sometimes, one has to crawl into the skin of experience 
>to
>understand the stirrings of the people/phenomenon you wish to understand 
>...
>step into other shoes ... it kind of reminds me of another Murakami's
>approach in storytelling (Haruki this time, not Ryu) ... gosh, in "Dance
>Dance Dance", the hero (or non-hero) gets to into every sex fantasy role a
>man might fancy and never once moralized over it ... but it informs, no
>less, the reader like myself of things i found very hard to decipher from 
>my
>visit of Tokyo last november ...
>
>now ... if i could only get ahold of that tape somehow ...
>
>naguib
>

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