WTF ASIA: Linda Linda Linda
TEENAGE PUNKS!!!
A group of girls had formed a band and planned to play a couple of cover songs for the high school festival, but an injury to the guitarist and subsequent fallout between two of the girls forced the three remaining band members to find a simpler song to play and a new vocalist with only 3 days to go. For their new songs, they end up choosing three punk classics (that are probably as old as they are if not slightly older) by the band the Blue Hearts. In desperation, they rope in the school’s lone Korean exchange student, whose grasp of Japanese is not that great and is probably the only one in the school who doesn’t know the Blue Hearts songs by heart. Actually, it is subtly implied that one of the three girls is not that as familiar with the band as the other two, but it is one of those almost throwaway details that add to the story without being a plot point.
We see the four practicing alone at home and together under less than ideal circumstances, such as having practice time clash with one of the member’s other festival job serving crepes. They practice a lot and often end up falling asleep from practicing so much, but they still have fun with it. In one amusing scene, the band has to play as quietly as possible and they all crack up with the knowledge of how stupid it sounds. We don’t even hear the band playing the song proper until almost halfway through the movie, and even then, it lacks the energy that they will need to make it work. They are extremely dedicated to practicing, even though at least two of them are inexperienced in what they are doing. It is notable that, although the girls are covering songs by an all-male band, they do not change the lyrics to keep it heterosexual and they never comment on the looks of the members of the Blue Hearts
Throughout the story, we see a bit of their lives; issues with boys, family, and so on. Most of it is only hinted at, though. Even the argument that had led to one of the members quitting the band before the start of the movie is not completely explained, and the reason why that seriously harmed the friendship between that character and one of the remaining band members remains a mystery. There are simply things that the characters do not want to talk about, so the audience is left to interpret what may have happened or just accept that they cannot know everything. It is never even stated what the former band was going to play or what they were going to be called, and the dialog deliberately calls attention to that at times. The characters are living in the present and living for the very near future. Their personalities manifest through their practicing and their conversations.
There are some jokes with the Korean struggling with speaking Japanese or understanding what is said to her and there are a couple “funny foreigner” bits where she fails to pick up on cues or slips (sometimes deliberately) into Korean, but they are not as mean-spirited as they could be. But she is as much a main character as the other three. And while it is somewhat ironic that she is chosen to be the vocalist, the opportunity allows her to find her voice in a country that she may not fully understand or that understands her. The band gives her a sense of belonging. There is even a scene where another character attempts to speak Korean to her and, especially given the context of the scene, it is much more amusingly awkward than any of her scenes of struggling with Japanese. It is not really about whether she can overcome cultural differences or linguistic difficulties, but whether those things will make it difficult for her to enjoy living in Japan. And, eventually, it becomes pretty clear that she will be okay, particularly with her new friends. And she even gets a chance to have an entire monologue in Korean. Granted, some of the stuff about her being Korean is not obvious if you are unfamiliar with Japanese culture or cannot tell the difference between the Korean and Japanese languages (the DVD is not particularly helpful in that regard, whereas the video in the links below shows the Korean in parentheses), but that is a small thing. I will say, though, that the name of their band is the Korean translation of Blue Hearts.
For a story about teenagers playing punk rock, the movie is relatively slow and quiet. The narrative goes at its own pace and meanders a bit. The plot is deliberately low-scale, setting it apart from many stories of kids trying to form a band. The acting is understated and naturalistic, rarely giving into the sense of urgency that the characters might be feeling. That is probably due to the plot: the festival may be a big deal, but it is hardly the big time. The soundtrack, by James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins, is pretty mellow and sometimes just ambient keyboards. All of this may make the movie come across as boring. To me, though, it would not have worked any other way. To make it more extreme or to play it more broadly would have detracted from the ending. There are a few plot contrivances, but they are nothing major. The contrivances that lead to the ending may have caused eye-rolling if the stakes were higher, but they work here. There is one fantasy sequence, which is mostly a consequence of them being completely exhausted, and even that is low-key. Perhaps the pace and tone is that way because the movie is not in the rush of the moment, but in the fog of memory; a vision of the final triumphant moment of one’s youth. It may explain why the adult characters kept getting sidelined and how the Korean character was accepted into the group so quickly and maybe a few details about the ending. There are viewers who may find all of that frustrating and sleep-inducing. I am not one of them.
Some movies and shows about high school show it to be a super-awesome piece of wish fulfillment, a pre-apocalyptic warzone, or an inescapable sleep-factory. Linda Linda Linda just shows three days in the lives of four students. Sometimes they have fun. Sometimes they have to work. Sometimes they do nothing. That is pretty much it. There are viewers who might question how the kids get the run of the school at this time, but that is pretty much the nature of this festival. The main characters are not heroes or brats, just kids with flaws and charms. They can be weird, goofy, obsessed, and laid-back. There are no villains, not even the girl who quit the band. There are no impossible odds to be overcome. There are certain stories that do not get explained until much later, plot threads that do not get developed, and character arcs that are incomplete. That is just how things are sometimes. Things do not simply resolve themselves just because the movie has ended. The lives of the characters are not over simply because this particular story is over. It is a slice of life film.
The movie starts out with a girl who is reciting what sounds like a manifesto about being kids and cherishing their childhood as something real as opposed to a phase to be abandoned upon adulthood. And while it gets undercut somewhat humorously, it seems to be the point of the movie. The girls are trying to retain their childhood and avoid getting lost in the world of adulthood that is closing in on them. They are having being kids for one last time and forever. Sometimes, that just takes a lot of hard work. You may not necessarily be the best at what you do, but if you do your best, you can still shine through. The rewards may not be a billion-dollar deal or a private gig for the Ramones, but they are there and they are real. Being able to assert one’s childhood and give it one’s last hurrah is its own reward. And while this movie offers nothing big, it provides rewards of its own, if one is willing to accept them.
The movie is available to watch here:
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1a-2lrzv_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1b-2lrzr_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1c-2lrzf_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2a-2lrzt_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2b-2ls2h_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2c-2ls2f_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2d-2ls21_2fqwf_.html
WATCH IT!!!
A group of girls had formed a band and planned to play a couple of cover songs for the high school festival, but an injury to the guitarist and subsequent fallout between two of the girls forced the three remaining band members to find a simpler song to play and a new vocalist with only 3 days to go. For their new songs, they end up choosing three punk classics (that are probably as old as they are if not slightly older) by the band the Blue Hearts. In desperation, they rope in the school’s lone Korean exchange student, whose grasp of Japanese is not that great and is probably the only one in the school who doesn’t know the Blue Hearts songs by heart. Actually, it is subtly implied that one of the three girls is not that as familiar with the band as the other two, but it is one of those almost throwaway details that add to the story without being a plot point.
We see the four practicing alone at home and together under less than ideal circumstances, such as having practice time clash with one of the member’s other festival job serving crepes. They practice a lot and often end up falling asleep from practicing so much, but they still have fun with it. In one amusing scene, the band has to play as quietly as possible and they all crack up with the knowledge of how stupid it sounds. We don’t even hear the band playing the song proper until almost halfway through the movie, and even then, it lacks the energy that they will need to make it work. They are extremely dedicated to practicing, even though at least two of them are inexperienced in what they are doing. It is notable that, although the girls are covering songs by an all-male band, they do not change the lyrics to keep it heterosexual and they never comment on the looks of the members of the Blue Hearts
Throughout the story, we see a bit of their lives; issues with boys, family, and so on. Most of it is only hinted at, though. Even the argument that had led to one of the members quitting the band before the start of the movie is not completely explained, and the reason why that seriously harmed the friendship between that character and one of the remaining band members remains a mystery. There are simply things that the characters do not want to talk about, so the audience is left to interpret what may have happened or just accept that they cannot know everything. It is never even stated what the former band was going to play or what they were going to be called, and the dialog deliberately calls attention to that at times. The characters are living in the present and living for the very near future. Their personalities manifest through their practicing and their conversations.
There are some jokes with the Korean struggling with speaking Japanese or understanding what is said to her and there are a couple “funny foreigner” bits where she fails to pick up on cues or slips (sometimes deliberately) into Korean, but they are not as mean-spirited as they could be. But she is as much a main character as the other three. And while it is somewhat ironic that she is chosen to be the vocalist, the opportunity allows her to find her voice in a country that she may not fully understand or that understands her. The band gives her a sense of belonging. There is even a scene where another character attempts to speak Korean to her and, especially given the context of the scene, it is much more amusingly awkward than any of her scenes of struggling with Japanese. It is not really about whether she can overcome cultural differences or linguistic difficulties, but whether those things will make it difficult for her to enjoy living in Japan. And, eventually, it becomes pretty clear that she will be okay, particularly with her new friends. And she even gets a chance to have an entire monologue in Korean. Granted, some of the stuff about her being Korean is not obvious if you are unfamiliar with Japanese culture or cannot tell the difference between the Korean and Japanese languages (the DVD is not particularly helpful in that regard, whereas the video in the links below shows the Korean in parentheses), but that is a small thing. I will say, though, that the name of their band is the Korean translation of Blue Hearts.
For a story about teenagers playing punk rock, the movie is relatively slow and quiet. The narrative goes at its own pace and meanders a bit. The plot is deliberately low-scale, setting it apart from many stories of kids trying to form a band. The acting is understated and naturalistic, rarely giving into the sense of urgency that the characters might be feeling. That is probably due to the plot: the festival may be a big deal, but it is hardly the big time. The soundtrack, by James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins, is pretty mellow and sometimes just ambient keyboards. All of this may make the movie come across as boring. To me, though, it would not have worked any other way. To make it more extreme or to play it more broadly would have detracted from the ending. There are a few plot contrivances, but they are nothing major. The contrivances that lead to the ending may have caused eye-rolling if the stakes were higher, but they work here. There is one fantasy sequence, which is mostly a consequence of them being completely exhausted, and even that is low-key. Perhaps the pace and tone is that way because the movie is not in the rush of the moment, but in the fog of memory; a vision of the final triumphant moment of one’s youth. It may explain why the adult characters kept getting sidelined and how the Korean character was accepted into the group so quickly and maybe a few details about the ending. There are viewers who may find all of that frustrating and sleep-inducing. I am not one of them.
Some movies and shows about high school show it to be a super-awesome piece of wish fulfillment, a pre-apocalyptic warzone, or an inescapable sleep-factory. Linda Linda Linda just shows three days in the lives of four students. Sometimes they have fun. Sometimes they have to work. Sometimes they do nothing. That is pretty much it. There are viewers who might question how the kids get the run of the school at this time, but that is pretty much the nature of this festival. The main characters are not heroes or brats, just kids with flaws and charms. They can be weird, goofy, obsessed, and laid-back. There are no villains, not even the girl who quit the band. There are no impossible odds to be overcome. There are certain stories that do not get explained until much later, plot threads that do not get developed, and character arcs that are incomplete. That is just how things are sometimes. Things do not simply resolve themselves just because the movie has ended. The lives of the characters are not over simply because this particular story is over. It is a slice of life film.
The movie starts out with a girl who is reciting what sounds like a manifesto about being kids and cherishing their childhood as something real as opposed to a phase to be abandoned upon adulthood. And while it gets undercut somewhat humorously, it seems to be the point of the movie. The girls are trying to retain their childhood and avoid getting lost in the world of adulthood that is closing in on them. They are having being kids for one last time and forever. Sometimes, that just takes a lot of hard work. You may not necessarily be the best at what you do, but if you do your best, you can still shine through. The rewards may not be a billion-dollar deal or a private gig for the Ramones, but they are there and they are real. Being able to assert one’s childhood and give it one’s last hurrah is its own reward. And while this movie offers nothing big, it provides rewards of its own, if one is willing to accept them.
The movie is available to watch here:
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1a-2lrzv_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1b-2lrzr_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l1c-2lrzf_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2a-2lrzt_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2b-2ls2h_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2c-2ls2f_2fqwf_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/l2d-2ls21_2fqwf_.html
WATCH IT!!!