It
must be very difficult to be a teenage girl in Japanese high school. The
sexually repressed culture tells you one thing, but the fetishistic uniforms
suggest something else. Add in all the corrosiveness of social media and you
have a recipe for potential tragedy. Such will be the case for poor Hitomi
Sugimoto in Takaomi Ogata’s The Hungry
Lion (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.
At
first, it is funny to Sugimoto and her friends when their homeroom teacher is
perp-walked out of class by the cops. Everyone enjoys the scandal of his
alleged statutory crimes, until one of his purported sex tapes is leaked.
Although Sugimoto sees no similarities between herself and the compromised girl
in the video, somehow everyone else is convinced it is her. It starts with
whispering, escalates into taunting and bullying, and then culminates in
full-fledged sexual harassment.
Sadly,
we can guess exactly where this story is headed, but it is still devastating
when it gets there. Ogata cranks up the verisimilitude, using a highly
realistic, unforgivingly digital style not unlike the online videos that cause
so much damage in the film. While Ogata does not confine himself to personal
device screens, in the manner of the upcoming Searching movie (simply known as Search at Sundance), he still very clearly reflects the way they
shape teenagers’ perspectives. The upshot is we really do feel like we are
voyeuristically watching the real-life downfall of a teenager. However, Ogata
has plenty to say after the inevitable. In fact, he practically chokes viewers
on irony.
Urara
Matsubayashi is so believable as Sugimoto, it is absolutely terrifying. Her
deer-in-the-headlights look will utterly haunt you. In fact, the entire cast
looks so real, you could believe this is some sort of docu-hybrid. The narrative
might be fictional, but it is probably based on plenty of real life incidents.
In
a way, Hungry Lion is like Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone
helped do in Sugimoto. Friends, rivals, adults, family—nobody’s hands are clean
in this one. It is often a tough film to watch, but it still manages to shock and
surprise. Arguably, Yumi Sawai’s precise editing is key to the overall effect.
It is devastating, but probably a necessary warning regarding kids and social
media. Highly recommended, The Hungry
Lion screens Saturday (6/30) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s
NYAFF.
