Adapted from a sex-stuffed cult novel, LALAPIPO (a play on the phrase âA Lot of Peopleâ) follows divergent seedy strands of sexual and narrative spaghetti through the sticky Tokyo night. Thereâs a chubby freelance writer whoâs so obsessed with masturbating to the sound of his upstairs neighbors going at it that he forgets to deal with his own love life and when he finally does have sex he is immediately filled with self-loathing. The upstairs neighborâs story then splits off like an amoeba: sheâs an office lady seduced by a âtalent scoutâ who is falling down the sex industry ladder, moving from hostess, to massage girl, to private karaoke attendant. The talent scoutâs story then splits off and runs in its own direction, revealing the sorry state of this young pimpâs soul. From there, the movie takes more and more time to consider the lives of more and more characters until the entire Japanese sex industry is filled with the wailing of lost souls.
2009-02-07