Kamikaze Girls
May. 7th, 2011 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI watched a lovely Japanese movie yesterday called Kamikaze Girls. It's just like Amelie, if Amelie were a Japanese high school student who dressed in frothy, frilly Lolita dresses, who broke free of her semi-self-imposed isolation by befriending a biker chick rather than falling in love with a fellow who pieces together discarded photo booth snapshots.
So, okay, they're actually not that much alike. But they nonetheless have some of the same draws. Momoko, like Amelie, is an eminently likable but not always sympathetic heroine who has partially withdrawn into a fantasy world to deal with a real world that she doesn't much like. She imagines herself floating away into the sky, toward a sweet, frilly, Rococo fantasy land.
Ichigo (who calls herself Ichiko, because Ichigo means strawberry which is so not biker chick), Momoko's best friend, is in some ways quite opposite: she embodies toughness, spitting to emphasize her points and riding with a girl motorcycle gang. But it becomes clear that she, also, has constructed a fantasy-land for herself, although her fantasies are fierce and tough rather than frilly.
This underlying similarity draws them slowly, and with some false starts, into friendship. What I like is that their friendship doesn't change their characters, but rather deepens them: Ichigo remains a tough biker chick, and Momoko is always and forever obsessed with Rococo, but they realize that these simple definitions don't have to delineate the limitations of their beings.
I think it's a lovely movie. It gets a bit self-consciously arty in places, especially in the beginning, which means it gets off to a slow start; but the story gains strength and purpose and speed as it rolls along. It's an excellent movie.
(Also, because I know a couple of you speak Japanese: in Japanese, the movie and the novel it's based on are called Shimotsuma Story.)
So, okay, they're actually not that much alike. But they nonetheless have some of the same draws. Momoko, like Amelie, is an eminently likable but not always sympathetic heroine who has partially withdrawn into a fantasy world to deal with a real world that she doesn't much like. She imagines herself floating away into the sky, toward a sweet, frilly, Rococo fantasy land.
Ichigo (who calls herself Ichiko, because Ichigo means strawberry which is so not biker chick), Momoko's best friend, is in some ways quite opposite: she embodies toughness, spitting to emphasize her points and riding with a girl motorcycle gang. But it becomes clear that she, also, has constructed a fantasy-land for herself, although her fantasies are fierce and tough rather than frilly.
This underlying similarity draws them slowly, and with some false starts, into friendship. What I like is that their friendship doesn't change their characters, but rather deepens them: Ichigo remains a tough biker chick, and Momoko is always and forever obsessed with Rococo, but they realize that these simple definitions don't have to delineate the limitations of their beings.
I think it's a lovely movie. It gets a bit self-consciously arty in places, especially in the beginning, which means it gets off to a slow start; but the story gains strength and purpose and speed as it rolls along. It's an excellent movie.
(Also, because I know a couple of you speak Japanese: in Japanese, the movie and the novel it's based on are called Shimotsuma Story.)
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Date: 2011-05-08 04:07 am (UTC)::loves Amelie::
Have you seen the Korean film "I'm a Cyborg But That's OK"? I think you'd like it.
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Date: 2011-05-08 02:47 pm (UTC)...well, okay, not actually. But she is delightfully eccentric.
I haven't seen that film! I shall add it to my list.
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Date: 2011-05-08 05:26 pm (UTC)It's like Amelie, but even more cracky. The heroine is literally admitted into an insane asylum.
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Date: 2011-05-08 08:24 pm (UTC)Netflix doesn't have it. Hmmmmm.
Speaking of movies about awesomely crazy young women: House of Fools is totally spiffy. The heroine is adorable and has a cute almost-romance with one of the Chechen soldiers occupying the insane asylum.
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Date: 2011-05-08 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 07:14 pm (UTC)Damn it. Now you've got me wanting to watch Amelie. XD
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Date: 2011-05-08 11:00 pm (UTC)