Summary
There’s a fine line between social commentary and exploitation cinema. Where this film falls will depend on the eye of the beholder.
Influencer culture is prime for parody and critical examination. From Ingrid Goes West to Fake Famous, dark comedy and obvious skewering have helped us recognise our own complicity in the social media culture. Yet Sato Amane’s new film may be the first to combine the soft porn of pinku eiga and psychological horror with screenlife.
In the broadest sense, the film follows the titular Tachibana Ayako (Yamagishi Aika) and her partner Keisuke (Higashiyama Kohei) after they’ve shot to fame through a series of cute YouTube videos. Ayako does the majority of the work, yet Keisuke gets most of the credit. Adding insult to injury, Keisuke is having a series of steamy affairs, getting off while watching the cutesy content he’s created with Ayako.
As the film wastes little time before diving straight into a point-of-view sex scene, there’s some weight to the argument that Sato simply wanted to smuggle his dedication to pinku eiga conventions inside the Trojan horse of social commentary. Given that there’s at least half-a-dozen more similar scenes squeezed into the slender 72 minute frame — one of which is a truly uncomfortable date rape sequence — it’s not a tough argument to make a case for.
While briefly telegraphed early in the piece, Sato’s film veers into psychological and (sort of) supernatural horror in the second half. As Ayako’s revenge story intersects with Keisuke’s extracurricular activities, a third party enter the mix. Here is where the film attempts to be something more than simply a series of scenes, making some wry comments on the addictive nature of viral attention.
Some of this is quite effectively filmed, using screenlife techniques in the familiar Blair Witch Project tradition. There’s at least one minor jump scare, paving the way for a climactic confrontation that gets a little stabby. Here the subtleties of influencer culture go out the window, with a more heavy-handed point made in the final moments.
AYAKO TACHIBANA WANTS TO GO VIRAL (橘アヤコは見られたい) is a film that I wanted to like more. The psychological horror had lots of potential, and at times there’s some uncanny insight into influencer culture. Unfortunately, Sato’s stylistic choices — not to mention his choice of genre — ultimately detract from any point he was trying to make.
2020 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Sato Amane | WRITERS: Sato Amane | CAST: Yamagishi Aika, Higashiyama Kohei, Koume Ena, Yoshine Yuria | DISTRIBUTOR: Okura Pictures, International Film Festival Rotterdam | RUNNING TIME: 72 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 2-6 June 2021 (IFFR)
