After finishing up his epic anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno tries his hand at live-action with the highly experimental Love and Pop. Adapted from a book written by Ryu Murakami, the film tells a tale about the ‘enjo kosai’ (compensated dating) trend afflicting Japan--where young schoolgirls date older men for exorbitant amounts of money.
However, enjo kosai is different from prostitution because there’s no overt sexual activity. Girls are most often simply paid to have dinner or visit a karaoke bar with an older man. And so, casually enough with her friends, 16-year old Hiromi enters this “underworld” situated right on the public streets of Japan. From the start of the film, the viewer witnesses middle-aged men nervously waiting around streets and train stations, creepily stopping these girls to offer them tens of thousands of yen just to have dinner together.
Hiromi and her friends are typical schoolgirls, talking about class, boyfriends and clothing, and they simply date these men to earn some quick cash. They hardly let it occupy their lives, until one day, Hiromi spots an expensive ring and falls in love with it. Driven by this materialistic desire, she gets far more involved in enjo kosai, diving headfirst into a world where girls are constantly guided by their cell phones and checking voicemail message boards for the next available date.
But regardless of the apparent “innocence” of these dates, Anno complicates matters by realistically escalating the conflict to blur the line between enjo kosai and prostitution and effectively filtering it through Hiromi’s eyes. Only half the film seems to deal with this issue, while the other half focuses on developing the friendships between the girls and covering Hiromi’s daily life. Her family has no more than five minutes of screen time, but the minor touches of adding a toy-train collector father, swimming-obsessed mother and apathetic sister give the protag a well-rounded life. To Anno, Hiromi isn’t simply an enjo kosai girl, but a stand-in for any normal girl in Japan who could fall into this lifestyle.
Anno and cinematographer Takahide Shibanushi also enhance the plot’s realism by employing a cinema verite visual style full of odd aspect ratios, documentary style hand-held camerawork, constrained and vulnerable subjective perspectives and unique voyeuristic camera angles—even putting mini cameras in microwaves and jewelry cases. They take full advantage of the technology to tell the story with a particular mood and succeed remarkably. Viewers may often forget they are watching a piece of fiction.
However, the film does occasionally get overzealous in its strange visual style, usually to the plot’s detriment. The narrative has its share of confusing and uneven moments that are only rendered more so by the overindulgent visuals. But for the most part, Love and Pop is a modest, effective film that will please anyone who can get past the difficult subject matter. In addition, diehard Tadanobu Asano fans will appreciate his delightful little cameo as well.
Reviewed by Tarun
