I gotta give one great big shout for the fabulous (in all senses) Kamikaze Girls: the pop-culture-saturated story of an improbable friendship between Momoko (Kyoko Fukada), a young woman striving like Wilde toward a “rococo” way of being in frilly Lolita-inspired dresses, and Ichigo/Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a young woman striving to be a Wild One via a tough-grrl Yanki way of being.
The movie is a joy to watch, moving through flashbacks and fantasy sequences of exuberant playfulness, even presenting one sequence in cartoons (to keep “you kids” attentive, Momoko tells the camera). It’s one big sugary/drug-rush of a film, but not–for all that–simplistic or stupid; it avoids all the expected cliches (especially the seemingly-inevitable breakdown of female friendship into hetero courtship). And best of all it revels in the intelligence and agency of its protagonists–not suckered into prefab style but slyly finding in the trash of consumer culture means to make something of their own. But blah blah: it’s just a blast.
mike, i love it when you cut yourself short with “blah blah blah.” we know what you’re going to say anyway, so it’s just fine if you want to do it more often.
jeff is poophead.
This is a lot of fun, and I particularly like the way it plays with the construction and use of myth (and play is the appropriate word because it is never heavy-handed nor does the movie take itself seriously for even one instant). You basically press ‘play’ and then hang on tight as the movie careens around in all sorts of unexpected ways.
It does slow down a couple of times near the end when Momoko tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life, and this is not a movie that can sustain any pace slower than a roller coaster. The cartoon sequences are fun, but then almost every character (the two protagonists, the father, the grandmother, the ‘Baby’ store owner) is a cartoon, so you need the animation to tell when they start and stop.
watched this tonight. great fun, indeed. thanks, mike, for the recommendation. it does begin to flag around the 53 minute mark but only by its own breakneck standard. i don’t really know much about contemporary japanese film but this feels of a piece with that whole post-tarantino guy ritchie/danny boyle/etc. aesthetic. except this feels less like style for style’s sake despite being more self-reflexive about its style than any of those guys’ films.
i am shocked to discover the tepid reviews (and low metascore) this film received. here’s an example: