WisFilmFest2007: Schabow on "Linda, Linda, Linda"

[inline:1]As a musician and pop lover, I knew I would find Linda, Linda, Linda (a Japanese film about 4 schoolgirls who start a rock'n'roll band) at the very least, interesting, but to be honest, my expectations were optimistically higher than that. After all, the synopsis of the movie read to me like Shakespeare: "Where for art thou rock and/or roll and where for art thou girls dressed in thus school-uniforms performing thus afternoon spring pop?"

I'm happy to say that Linda, Linda, Linda is exactly what I thought it would be which is actually a good thing this time. No big, huge surprises. It's just a simple story about four girls who have a dream to play pop music for their high school talent show.

While learning how to play their instruments and how to sing, we witness the four slowly getting better while mostly practicing just one song named, you guessed it, "Linda, Linda, Linda." The song is one of the coolest straight-up pop songs I have ever heard on film. Even in the beginning, when they are butchering it at the early stages in practice, my toes were still tapping away, which says a lot about the songwriting itself. Because of this, I knew that was all a precursor and a set-up for the big finale which is, of course, the talent show. Even when I knew what to expect when they got on stage, I was still blown away. Wow...just, wow.

While leaving the theater, I heard some people complaining about the length of the film being too long. For me, once I am in love with the characters, time is not an issue anymore. It's true that the set-up was a bit long, but fuck it, you know what they say, "It's good enough for rock'n'roll."

If you want to see "The Paran Maums" playing "Linda, Linda, Linda" at the talent show, here it is for you with subtitles: