MQFF REVIEW: Schoolgirl Complex (2013, Dir. Yūichi Onuma)

Booking into Yūichi Onuma's high-school drama, Schoolgirl Complex, was an exercise in giving the MQFF programming team the benefit of the doubt. All signs pointed to shamelessly rampant schoolgirl fetishism but I persevered.

From now on, I'll remember if it looks like a schoolgirl and it giggles like a schoolgirl...

There's a lot of looking and a lot of giggling. In fact, the whole of the opening credits and a good portion of the ensuing film consists of shots of young girls in short skirts, sweating in the sun, with their heads cropped of in a way that would make Grindr proud.

Lots of limber legs lolling lazily... and not much else. Well not much else that I could decipher.

There were schoolgirls being bitchy in a extraordinarily diffident manner, a lot of vocal exercises (the context of the film is a broadcast club at the girls' high school), some rivalry with one of the club's new members and lovelorn pining, endless pining, from all quarters.

The looming arts festival that constitutes the senior students' farewell gives some cursory shape to the film (they're presenting a reading of a monologue entitled 'Schoolgirl'), but with all the girls dressed the same, most of them sounding the same and at least half of them panting politely after one another, it is difficult to make sense of what is going on. The girls bafflingly random actions don't help any.

It is not a complete loss. The climactic broadcast turns into an onstage confessional that explains a lot of preceding angst and confirms Onuma's commitment to the film's whacked out tone. There's some interest in the post-queer reaction (if that is indeed what it is) but not enough to pull any sort of recommendation from me.

Strictly one for fans of Japanese schoolgirls.

★☆

Trailer:

Schoolgirl Complex screened as part of the 2014 Melbourne Queer Film Festival.