Helter Skelter

Let me tell you my experience about this movie. I set aside my list for this and focused on story, cinematography, the acting, the music and art.

What an amazing movie. Beauty and Chaos. Ambition and Failure.

Give kudos to the actress in this movie. She is GREAT.

Beauty and Chaos and I loved it. 10 stars.

visually stunning and amazing commentary

A roller coaster ride through the ludicrous depths of popular culture. The movie spins around the bizarre world of the music business and takes us slowly into madness to show us that fame is not always pleasant, but also pretty fucked up. I was not sure whether to laugh or cry watching Lilico. Overall, a crazy experience with an amazing score, visuals and an insanely good lead performance.

Twist-o-matic. Pop goes the culture! And Lilico is no more.

The cinematography impresses right from the start, with exquisite use of color, striking sets and costumes. The performances are good, but the movie as a whole suffers from irregularities. The story deals with deep themes, such as madness and the obsession with beauty and the effects of oppressive aesthetic standards, exploring the emotional and aesthetic impact of the quest for unnecessary plastic surgery. It also highlights how fame can distort one's sense of reality, generating a multi-layered obsession with control. Despite this thematic complexity, the film loses strength due to its narrative structure. The pace is draggy, with excessively long scenes that dilute the intensity of the plot. Surreal sequences, visual metaphors and theatrical nuances, although interesting at times, end up sounding exaggerated and tiresome. The ending is also overly explanatory, limiting reflection. Despite these structural problems, the narrative presents intriguing ideas that could have been explored in a more balanced way to achieve a greater impact.

Lilico is seen as a representation of ultimate beauty. She's basically a woman every teenage wants to be like. Behind her flawless image, her beauty is achieved through numerous painful cosmetic surgeries and she's actually a very insecure and mean woman that treats everyone in her life terribly. The pressure slowly builds once she discovers the side effects of the surgeries leave marks on her body, while there's a new young beautiful woman taking her spotlight. I'm still not sure if I like it or not. But I did find some enjoyment while watching it. The film is surreal and visually striking with extravagant sets and costumes. However there is a very little substance in this film. It wants to comment on celebrity and beauty worship but I'm suprised how shallow and uninventive it is. It doesn't offer anything new about these themes and if it does, it's only surface level. For over 2 hours long, this film doesn't provide much in terms of progression. The investigation part is undercooked and overall doesn't do much to the story. Also I feel like they don't really know how to end the film. I guess being visually interesting with very little substance is kind of the point of this after all.