Helter Skelter

A film set in Japan. Lilico is the country's best known model. Magazine covers, advertisements, television programmes, and the same face everywhere. That face is not hers. Everything but her eyes was made by surgery and the work was done at an illegal clinic. The side effects begin. Marks appear on the skin, the work shifts, and she has to keep going back to maintain it. From there the film is a collapse. She shouts at her manager, tortures her assistant, attacks her boyfriend's family, and a younger rival rises. At the same time a prosecutor is investigating the clinic and the file is moving toward Lilico. What the narrative is interested in is not beauty but demand: the film points not at the industry but at the audience; somebody wants that face and is paying for it. The image is deliberately excessive. The colours are saturated, the rooms are full of flowers and fabric, and every frame is built like a fashion shoot; the director came from photography and it shows. The tone is uncomfortable for that reason. A story of rotting is given in the brightest colours available. The source is a manga by Kyoko Okazaki. The text was serialised in a magazine between 1995 and 1996 and collected in a single volume. Erika Sawajiri was nominated for Best Actress at the Japan Academy Awards for the part. The film did large business in Japan and took around twenty-four million dollars worldwide. Erika Sawajiri, Nao Omori, Shinobu Terajima and Go Ayano are in the cast. Mika Ninagawa directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes visually excessive, hard portraits of a woman. Who it is not for: anyone unprepared for scenes of sex and self-harm; the film keeps those sections open and long.