Raise Your Arms and Twist, Documentary of NMB48

In a stadium filled with an army of fans swinging glow sticks like a single person, around sixty Lolitas, dancing and singing heady melodies, come on stage under an explosion of lasers. The girl band NMB48 is an authentic social phenomenon in Japan. Racking up number ones on the hit parade, filling stadiums, its interchangeable members are under constant pressure and subject to individual popularity curves. The hyper-hierarchized group, which is divided into teams, sees parades of candidates dreaming of being noticed, becoming “captain”, being placed in the centre of the first line on stage, and getting a close-up in the next clip. As for the fans, they vote and thrill for their idols, when they are not in queue for an organised hand-shaking session, in which everyone has eight seconds to personally declaim their admiration. A pop documentary made of choruses of “Hey! Hey!” and “Woop! Woop!” that everyone will sing along with, of gratifying choreographies, against a backdrop of teenage drama subject to the diktat of individual recognition.

Mourad Moussa

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