Love & Pop

A Japanese film. Four schoolgirls spend a day in Tokyo. They go shopping, talk, walk through arcades and eat. One of them, Hiromi, sees a ring in a shop window and wants it. It costs more than she has. She decides to earn the money in one day. What she enters is a practice the country was arguing about at the time: men pay to spend time with schoolgirls. It is presented as conversation, a meal, a walk. Where it goes is left to the encounter. From there the film follows a series of meetings. Each man is different: one wants her to sing, one talks about his own life, one is frightening. None of it is dramatised; the camera simply stays. What the narrative is interested in is not judgment but distance: the adults are shown as ordinary, which is what makes it unbearable. The form is the film's most striking quality. It was shot on small consumer digital cameras, which were new at the time, and they are placed everywhere: inside a fridge, under a table, on the end of a shoe, on a plate of food. The image is often distorted, the resolution poor, the angles impossible. The choice is deliberate and matches the subject: a girl watched from every direction. The source is a novel by Ryu Murakami. Hideaki Anno directed, in his first live-action feature; he is known for his animation work. Who it is for: anyone interested in the beginnings of digital cinema and in Japanese films about adolescence. Who it is not for: anyone the subject will trouble; the film is about the sexual exploitation of children and keeps the camera on it without commentary.