Helter Skelter

As I watched Helter Skelter, I kept thinking about Perfect Blue. That movie was an eerie, delicate, mesmerizing, and unsettling look at the perils of fame and image for women in show business. Helter Skelter is very similar that aspect, but it comes at the topic from a different angle, enough that these could almost be a double feature. Perfect Blue was about a young woman in a J-Pop band who was encouraged to move onto more serious entertainment avenues. She felt compelled to follow them to keep her career alive, but the opportunities turned more and more adult, and the dissonance of maintaining her career while betraying her previous image and potentially poisoning her relationship with fans. Mima already has fame, but the horror and drama comes from having to pivot and abandon who she thinks she is. Helter Skelter's main character, Lilico, isn't pivoting like Mima. She was an average person who, through extensive plastic surgery, was transformed into a model and style icon. Her fame is wholly dependent on her looks. Lilico knows, though, that looks don't last forever, and that gets hastened when the surgical procedures used to attain her looks start to go haywire. Meanwhile, her agent brings in another, younger model, and now there's competition. Lilico begins to unravel in the most toxic and dangerous ways. She has defined herself by her looks and the adoration it brings; without the throngs of fans, without all that she's put herself through to be considered the paragon of beauty, what is she? If she can't have that validation, she decided she'll make everyone around her feel as miserable and hollow as she does. The difference between Mima and Lilico is that Mima is pushed into changes she doesn't necessarily agree; Lilico is 100% willing to sell her soul, and herself, to the top. Mima is a victim of circumstance; Lilico's nightmare is entirely self-inflicted, but it's no less horrific. Erika Sawajiri does a fantastic job bringing Lilico to life; she is pitiable, lonely, and desperate to hold onto what she has, because it's all she has. As Lilico's mental health deteriorates, she becomes irrational and loathsome, and Sawajiri's acting brings all of this to life. This is 100% her movie, and she carries it effortlessly. The camera loves her, and the direction is built around capturing and relaying Lilico's descent into madness, and it does so very well. The use of light and color to reflect her ever-shifting moods is artful, but not in a snobby "ooh, what does this mean?" kind of way. That said, it isn't as chilling as Perfect Blue is. It's probably unfair of me to compare the two, but I can see this is trying to use Lilico spiraling into insanity and depravity as a tool for horror, and it comes off more as sad than horrific. That may also be a function of the movie running just a bit too long, which is interesting, as Perfect Blue's biggest fault was being too short for its themes and ideas. Helter Skelter is a bit too long, dragging some scenes out for no good reason. Cut ten minutes off this movie and it gets another half star, no question. That said, this is still an excellently made movie, and a hell of an acting turn. Sitting through this and Perfect Blue might make for a depressing and surreal night, but they are two sides of the same tragic, and all too realistic, coin. You'll have to put in some work to find this movie, but it's worth the effort.