I watched a film called Call Me Chihiro, a Japanese Netflix production directed by Imaizumi Rikiya, which I found to be a very illuminating (and I must admit depressing) example of the global reach displayed by the Netflixisation of popular art. This is not a film review—I am not at this moment interested in doing film reviews here—but I want to use this space to write on varied topics, including film, an art form dear to my heart. A firmly held belief comes with the Platonic view the world, that philosophy underpins everything, as no act is truly philosophically neutral for a rational species, and this means that social norms have a philosophical bedrock. By looking at society’s cultural products, we can study the philosophy that shapes its norms. I do not wish to approach philosophy in an academic way, but in an Academic way, which is to say not as a dry cut-off section within society, made up of people throwing jargon at each other, but as an integral social force, indeed the most crucial of social forces. To do that, we must look at every facet of everything within society, and seek its underlying philosophy. (And yes, this may not be a review, but a spoiler warning for the film is, I feel, nonetheless warranted.)
What I found truly fascinating about this film was the tonal disconnect between the Japanese cultural milieu of the film’s setting and the thematic language buttressing the entire dramatic structure. While the film showed a Japanese environment with verisimilitude, an environment populated by adorable bento shop ladies, overworked parents, manga-devouring highschoolers, the forgotten homeless etc, and visualised in the form of a sleepy town that anyone who knows anything about sleepy towns will recognise, in Japan or anywhere else, the film itself looked upon all this with an eye so unmistakably branded with the aura of 21st century American media that it couldn’t be more obvious if it had a diverse cast.
I never listen to those who say that the cultural works of a society need not be seen as expressive of its soul. Such an attitude betrays a conspiratorial mindset, a mindset focused on the “occupied government” model instead of the “authentic expression” model, and while I sympathise with any Americans who are forced to adopt it to preserve their sanity, I cannot see it as entirely accurate. While it is true that Netflix does not represent an authentic expression of the American soul, and there are as many Americans fed up with Netflixisms as there are people in other countries, I cannot but see in Netflix values an Americanism. I am not asserting this to be the sole expression of Americanism, but the dominant Americanism propagandised by American media, in an age when American media are the global media, is an Americanism I am forced to assume is an authentic one. A psyop, after all, is not a crop wont to grow on barren soil.
If Netflix represents a global new Americanism, it is marching against what little resistance can be raised by anything outside its totalising paradigm. In America itself, one can argue that the liberal/conservative split shows evidence of such a resistance along its points of demarcation, but “American conservative cinema” is, as of now, either in a state of krypsis or in a position to be mocked and ignored, if such a thing can even be said to exist. Only the mainstream global new Americanism represented by Netflix shows signs of true vitality as far as America is concerned. But what of the rest of the world? India’s cultural vitality in the realm of film dazzled Western audiences when they recently discovered South Indian masala filmmaking. (Why they did so at this juncture is one of those mysteries I will never decipher, based as it is on what makes people notice a film, a process that remains to me unfathomable in its mystery.) This cultural vitality owes its existence to India’s very slow trek into modernity. Far behind the Western world, it tasted few of modernity’s fruits, both good and ill. Pre-modern attitudes are still going strong, and such is reflected in the country’s cinema. India’s backwardness—as painful as it is for Indians to hear that word—preserved a great part of its civilisational vitality. Chiefly, the country never fully transitioned from the pre-modern collectivist mode to the modern individualist mode, which is key to avoiding civilisational depression. India, therefore, is on the chopping block to be Netflixed. Cue Pakistani-Indian love affair dramas.
Japan is an altogether different case. It traded its poverty for a love affair with capitalism more tragic than anything onscreen, a love affair that seems to have broken the nation’s soul. 130 years on from Meiji’s reforms that turned Japan into a Western state, you won’t find Indian levels of destitution in the island-nation, but you will find an unbearable pall of sadness hanging over its clean, paved, undefecated-upon streets. Japan’s vitality is simultaneously one of belated modernity and hyper-modernity. The economic miracle is still emitting a mighty afterglow, yet nonetheless the depression has set in, and it appears to be stronger. The 80s are, for better or worse, over. Japan, unlike India, made great strides towards the individualist mode, precisely because its love affair with capitalism was so passionate. The dominant mode however remains strongly collectivistic, and this tension is at the heart of Japan’s civilisational depression.
In the film, the main character embodies in many ways this profound alienation, but not in a way that feels authentically Japanese—not as an honest expression of the Japanese soul—but in a way that feels altogether Netflixed. Chihiro is a former prostitute, now a nomad without a family who, fairy-like, heals those around her with an aura of collected kindness, though remaining unable, it seems, to apply this magic to her own soul. Her very name, Chihiro, is revealed to be an adoption, her sex-working nom de maison. The film’s title, therefore, is itself revealed to be a characteristically therapeutic affirmation: “Call Me Sex Worker“. I am woman hear me roar etc etc etc…
Chihiro is played by Arimura Kasumi, one of those fresh-faced ingénues every nation seems to fall head over heels for every now and again, and it must be said such a part is built for this type of actress, though I do not mean this as a positive assessment of the film. The manic pixie dream girl is a role the latest hottest young ingénue ought to be extra-careful with, and in this case, Miss Arimura was clearly directed to fully embrace the trope. No one could really pull it off, but she does have the air for it, and despite the film is, in her way, delightful. I’ve seen her in other films, she’s talented and doesn’t lack range, but I do find myself wishing I didn’t have to see another one of her “really enjoying my food” faces. Yes, it’s cute the first time, but a director ought to use such a thing once and not encourage an actress to do it over and over again, turning the cute scrunched-up food-orgasm face into a subplot unto itself. Although, I am not above availing myself of the opportunity to, in the spirit of Internet playfulness, say this: if you can achieve the re𝐭𝐚𝐫ded chipmunk look within an appreciably approximate degree of cuteness when you enjoy a mouthful of food, call me. All in all, Miss Arimura is well-cast, but what is asked of her is regrettably an obnoxious trope obnoxiously presented.
If Chihiro is the manic pixie dream girl floating over the film, dispensing liberally her fairy dust, what is it then that this fairy dust consists of, and on what precisely does it land? The primary thematic underpinnings of the film are: I.) biological families are oppressive, II.) sexually promiscuous women are magical, and III.) kindness heals. (Also, food is togetherness, but that is not thematically strong enough in its relevance to what I am discussing here.)
The film presents biological families as a terrible burden on the characters. Chihiro seems to be avoiding her family at all costs, and appears to have discovered the meaning of family in the sex industry. A young boy raised by a brutally overworked single mother is forced to rely on himself, and eventually on Chihiro. A highschooler is trapped under the thumb of her dictatorial father and her insufferably meek mother, and seeks escape in friendships, manga and, obviously, Chihiro. A blinded shop-owner, though happily married, cannot rely on her husband to give her the kindness only Chihiro can provide. Everywhere you look, family collapses. Everywhere you look, Chihiro heals.
As I mentioned above, Japan has not moved on from the collectivist mode of social organisation. Filial piety remains very strong, as it does in most East Asian countries. Call Me Chihiro depicts a world in which filial piety towards your parents is unearned, and it is better directed towards found families. This attack on the family is the most obvious sign that the film operates in favour of an individualistic social framework, against the collectivistic Japanese norm. In other words, it operates as would an equivalent film from the USA. This is underscored by a repeated thematic device in the film, the notion of different people descending from different planets. The screenplay intimates that it is very rare for people to find someone from “their planet”, and the implication is that to do so necessarily sidesteps biological family. The individualism could not be more explicit.
The key to the film’s treatment of family can perhaps be found in the scene wherein Chihiro learns her mother died, as well as the later scene wherein she admits she felt nothing at this horrific revelation. Receiving a call from her brother, Chihiro is informed of her mother’s passing, and reacts with a complete lack of emotion. She refuses to go to the funeral and completely forgets about it by the next scene. Some time later, she tells her employer, whom she has just rescued from the hospital (another oppressive framework), that she felt nothing. The figures she instead offers as her found parents are a random prostitute she met as a child, her kindly former pimp whom she either fancies a bit or believes to be her father (Chihiro is undecided on this point), and her blinded employer herself, whom she tells she believes comes from the same planet. The scene even spins all this into a straightforwardly uttered “you’re wonderful just the way you are”. No American soldier ever imposed on Japan the American way more than this screenplay. Nothing more horrific could I conceive than not being torn to absolute shreds by the death of a parent.
It is also very interesting to look at how the film treats prostitution, for it is treated not as a real profession at all. Instead, prostitution seems to be some form of magical power in one’s past. Indeed, we only see one scene of Chihiro with a client, and the scene is one of psychotherapy, not prostitution. For the film then, prostitution is not about sex but about therapy. If we look into its thematic heart, we will see that its entire ethos is therapeutic. Sex in the film is not itself therapy, as only in one scene does Chihiro literally seem to heal with sex. In the rest of the film, her sexuality is an identity, a preternatural aura of “free girl who doesn’t care”. Chihiro heals those around her as a result of her unpretentious kindness, which seems to be inextricably linked to her overall liberality, including in the domain of the sexual. Using this magical esprit, Chihiro saves a homeless man from bullies and becomes his protector, provides a family for all neglected children in town, and generally mends all broken things. A former sex worker with manic pixie dream girl moxie is all that’s needed to fix the world, it would seem. The world of the film is bounded by death, and only the kindness Chihiro embodies can heal the pain caused by such an environment. “Nihilism true therefore therapy” is the most common philosophical underpinning of mature end-of-history modernity, and this film embodies it to a T, even managing to add a sassy transgender sidekick and found families to the mix.
As I said earlier, this is not a review. However, in case your interest is piqued and you wish to see the film, I feel compelled to add a warning: the film is quite long and lacks, strictly speaking, a plot. For those resistant to the unique charm that small Japanese seaside towns offer, with their attendant rhythms, it will be insufferable. For me, the NuMerican values dressed in saccharine “you’re wonderful just the way you are” humanitarianism proved a greater irritant, but it should be noted, as a warning to those who might be intrigued, that, technically, this is a long film without a properly defined plot that is bound to bore those not attuned to this filmmaking style.
As to my conclusions related to the philosophical underpinnings of Call Me Chihiro, I can say this alone: American NuCulture will wear your culture as a skinsuit, keeping the appearance but replacing the essence. Beware, lest you be Netflixed. Long and hard.