Being a fan of Ogata Takaomi’s previous effort Never Ending Blue, I had to check out the young director’s latest offering which appeared to be another sordid school girl tale, The Hungry Lion. The film had its North American premiere at NYAFF on June 30 and turned out to be much more than I expected, delivering an intense cautionary tale that was surprisingly topical and one that deeply affected me long after I left the theater.
The film begins with Hitomi Sugimoto rushing into class late one fateful morning. After her teacher Mr. Hosono previously just berated a male student for being late, he lets her off simply with a “get to your seat.” Before Hitomi can even get settled her teacher is taken away by the police as the entire class looks on filming his arrest. We soon discover Mr. Hosono’s crime was sex with one of his students, and not far after this accusation begins to circulate a grainy video also surfaces. The video is rumored to be the teacher’s “leaked” sex video with none other than Hitomi. What happens from here is a story that has sadly become way too common. The young girl vehemently denies being the girl in the footage, to her boyfriend, her friends, and her family, but no one believes her. Because she was “identified” by “a source on the internet.” Everyone in her life is so focused on the sordid video and its details that not one person seems to question the legitimacy of the rumor. They just simply believe it to be true.
As the slut shaming worsens, the once popular basketball player who loved social media is asked to leave school because she has become too much of a distraction. She is mercilessly bullied by her classmates and even her sister. When Hitomi is doxed on Christmas Eve, her world comes crashing down when she is sexually assaulted by her boyfriend’s older friends she reaches out to for a friendly ear. While that is an effective enough narrative in itself, the film keeps going as Takaomi does something truly brilliant and also heartbreaking with Hitomi’s story. Takaomi keeps the camera rolling, and we get his take on internet infamy and a society that refuses to take responsibility, instead blaming her mother or her lack of a father for what led this young woman to go off the right path. It’s a perspective I didn’t expect and one that elevates what could have simply be salacious exploitation, turning it into a very effective statement on the current #MeToo movement.
The film is presented in a pseudo-documentary style that was reminiscent of Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop. The camera isn’t the only perspective here; iPhones, Security cameras, TV news footage, and CCTV are all integrated to add an intimacy to Hitomi’s story. Takaomi uses this approach coupled with a non-conventional editing style, where each scene or angle is preceded by a few seconds of black screen to assist in creating a sense of real unease. This style is jarring in the beginning of the film, but as you become more engrossed, it begins to ratchet up the tension scene after scene. Because as the film slowly builds to its conclusion, you’re not sure if the scene you’re watching could be the end of the film. This technique, while not for every film, works here and enhances the meta style at play, which Takaomi manages to work into the film in an eerie coda.
The Hungry Lion is not an easy pill to swallow, and it’s a film that ultimately leaves you with more questions than answers. It’s a bleak portrait of not just Japanese youth, but what it’s like to be a young woman in our overconnected society that is always quick to judge first and ask questions later. Takaomi masterfully manipulates the audience using these themes in a way that doesn’t feel cheap or exploitative, instead taking some real risks to tell the story in a nontraditional way. The Hungry Lion is the kind of film I come to film festivals for — it’s a brutal watch, which is also rewarding in its conclusion and how it tells a story that’s definitely not for a conventional audience.