Body as a Medium of Power and Desire

Disclaimer: This article was written for a class that I took in UCLA, Japan 70, during Fall 2019. No one is allowed to use this work without my authorization or you might violate academic integrity.

Before reading: I make references to some scene of the film by marking its time in the format (hh:mm:ss). For instance, (01:30:05) means the scene happens at 1 hour 30 minutes and 5 seconds from the start of the film.

In this article, we discuss and explore the function and the usage of body within the 2 films Perfect Blue and All about Lily Chou-Chou. The body is the interface for one’s soul, and this is also true for the films. The body becomes the grounds from which characters stage their powerlessness and assert their ultimate control over their bodies. The body also acts as a medium on which the characters express their unreachable desire.

Perfect Blue uses Mima’s abuse of her own body as a reflection of her lack of power in controlling her life. The first instance of her body abuse is her rape scene in the TV show Double Bind. She appears to be completely fine with the fact, but internally, she is extremely disdainful with the choice. The film hinted at her uneasiness with a shot from her POV looking up the ceiling of the set (Figure 1).

Our eyes feel uncomfortable staring at the light directly. We feel Mima’s uncomfortableness through the blinding ray of light. It resonates with the feeling of suppression that Mima feels when she is held down by several men. Her agony is later projected outward when she is home and has a break down (Figure 2). Her loss of control over her body is a reflection of the show business having having control over her. Her attitude is clear that abusing her own body is undesirable, but she has no choice but to give up her body in exchange for her career prospect, more so, to buy her time to solidify her role as an actress. In the photo shooting scene, the same pattern of abuse is re-enforced by the film. The scene is also interlaced with the performance of the rest of the 2 members of “CHAM!“. The lyrics of the song that they are performing can be interpreted to indirectly reflect Mima’s suffering: “I’d rather wear jeans, than tight business suits” (45:20). Ironically, the “business suits” that suffocates Mima is her nakedness for the show business. It is as if Mima is singing the song to express her strong desire to break free from the abuse of her body. Through Mima’s abuse of her body, the film shows the power that the business has over her, and also her internal conflict between dignity and career.

Interestingly, in a later shot, the creepy security guard actually imagines Mima on the stage performing as well. I personally think this is an intentional choice made to associate the lyrics with Mima’s current mental state (Figure 3).

All about Lily Chou-Chou also uses body as a mean to portrait the characters’ control and power. The obvious example is the exploited body of Shiori. She is blackmailed by Hoshino with her nudes and therefore has to “sell her body”. Another instance is when Yōko is raped by Hoshino’s gang. They are clear manifestations of the power Hoshino has over them. Perhaps what is more interesting is how Shiori and Yōko assert control over their body and thus over their life. Shiori committed suicide at the end (1:57:16). We can interpret her death in 2 ways, either as the most extreme form of body mutilation, or as a way to free her body. If we take the first interpretation, then Shiori’s act of killing her body is an absolute demonstration of power that Hoshino has over her. However, the second interpretation is more convincing if we also examine the scene where she flies the kite right before her death (Figure 4). She is taught how to pull her arm down to give momentum to the kite. Each time Shiori pull her hands down firmly, it is an assertion of control that she no longer has over her body. When she declares she “want to ride on a kite” and “fly in the sky”, the film foreshadows her suicide (1:56:58). The dialog shows Shiori’s urge for freedom.

With Shiori, the film attempts to show her control over herself with the devastation of her exploited body. On the other hand, Yōko chose a different way to cope with the assault done to her body. After she is raped, she cut all her hair and become bald (Figure 5). In this sequence, all students stared at Yōko’s new hairstyle. It seems that the bald haircut is a public declaration from Yōko to assert her control over her body. In this shot, Yūichi sits behind Yōko, and when Yōko came into the frame, her head and upper body covered up Yūichi, who is a culprit of the crime. The visual arrangement here suggests Yōko tries to cover up the abuse to her body through another “abuse to her body” of cutting her hair, further exemplifies the use of body to assert power, not only over other people, but also over oneself.

Both films use the body as a stage for the characters to dispatch their control either over somebody else, or over themselves. But in addition to asserting their power, the characters enact a genuine desire to avoid engaging in the arena of power dynamics at all, but instead to seek security through the body. Next, we turn our attention to the characters’ display of their desire fantasy and expectation for a certain body, which is is highly linked to their emotional desire as well.

In Perfect Blue, Rumi creates a virtual body of Mima online that fits perfectly into her expectation of who Mima should be. According to the blog, the virtual Mima is struggling with her rape scene, since she (Rumi’s imagination of Mima) called the producer a “total pervert” (37:39). Although those are not Mima’s actual word, it aligns with her disgust with the rape scene, as analyzed above. Mima is also confused and misled by the virtual image of herself on the blog. There is an expectation and a wish for the “purity” of Mima’s body here, coming from both Mima and Rumi. We focus on Rumi’s desire here. Rumi seeks security of having the old pop idol Mima image. Therefore, she attempts to fulfill her crave for the old Mima image through “living” in the virtual Mima’s body. Later, her desire grows so strong that she exhibits her desire for the comfort zone of the pop idol image through physical action. Particularly, we look at the scene when Rumi murders the photographer who took the nudes for Mima. Before the film reveals Rumi as the murderer, the scene intentionally does the murder through “Mima’s body” (Figure 6). It can be understood as Rumi seeks comfort in Mima’s pop idol image through using Mima’s body to do the murder thus “her Mima” fits the expectation of her, maintaining her pop idol image. This message is enforced by the projector screen showing a picture Mima. The innuendo here is the Rumi’s imaginary projection of her expected Mima’s body is doing the stabbing. Therefore, through a mix of the virtual and physical body of Mima curated by Rumi, the film shows the Rumi’s extreme sickening content to stay within Mima’s pop idol image.

All about Lily Chou-Chou also paints the teenagers’ wish for security through their creates a desire for the body of a mother. As Professor Kanesaka has mentioned in class, the story of the film revolves around a bunch of 14-year-old. The reason behind the intentional selection of this age group is that they are faced with a decision to either keep studying in high school, or just stop after finishing middle school. There is an insecurity that is associated with the age of 14. When Yūichi first visits Hoshino’s house, he displayed some desire what might be misinterpreted as “sexual interest” towards Hoshino’s mother. He purposely uses the shampoo of Hoshino’s mother (38:27). Using somebody else’s shampoo represents an indirect physical contact with the person’s body. It shows Yūichi’s urge to achieve intimacy with Hoshino’s mother. The film also allows the viewers to feel the intimacy through Yūichi’s POV. In the same shower scene, Hoshino’s mother opens the door and talks to Yūichi face-to-face even though Yūichi is naked in the bath tub. Immediately after the shower scene, the shot is in the perspective of Yūichi (Figure 7). The light is low, having her face half lit in a very intimate setting of a bedroom. All these shots let us see the mother’s attractiveness to Yūichi. At this point, Yūichi thinks that the female is Hoshino’s sister. Therefore, it is confusing to him, and also the viewer, that he has this almost sexual feeling towards someone’s body. Later, Hoshino clarified that the female is actually his mother (39:06). At this point, the film is trying to relate teenagers’ sexual lust to a maternal figure.

The next instance when the teenager displays their desire towards a female body is when they are in Okinawa. The boys are fighting over the video recorder so they can film the body of the female tour guides (Figure 8). How does this have anything to do with the maternal figure and ultimately the crave for security of teenagers then? The answer lies in the conversation they have with the hitchhiker: “Okinawans say man was made from woman’s rib. So women here are very powerful.” (54:39) Here, the notion of women giving birth or creating men’s body is being mentioned. This serves as a link between mothers’/women’s strength and their body. Women are being described to be a reliable figure here, not only from the saying, but also from the fact that their tour guides, who tourists have to depend on so they do not get lost, are girls. After, their trip to Okinawa, Yūichi starts to get bullied by Hoshino, getting involved in this entire power dynamics circle. During this time of uncertainty and insecurity, the teenagers (including Yūichi and Hoshino) seek comfort in Lily’s music. Yūichi, as Philia, says that Lily “conceives and give birth to” her music, and “the Ether is the amniotic fluid” (25:10). Tying all these strings together, we see that the teenagers are looking for security inside a mother’s body, which is reflected through their sexual interest in women’s body. The security of being a mother’s womb, in which all of the baby’s need are being catered to perfectly, is what the teenagers in the power struggle are after. The mother offers the protection the baby needs. Therefore, the film describes their craving for security through their interest in a maternal body.

In conclusion, both the Perfect Blue and All about Lily Chou-Chou plays with the notion of body to reflect their manipulative relationships with their influences over their body, and to show the desire of staying away from such distorted relationships.