Kamikaze Girls

下妻物語 Tetsuya Nakashima, (2004)
Tetsuya Nakashima is one of the most exciting directors working in Japan today. His visual style is absolutely amazing and he has proven himself capable of working with a wide range of material (often adaptations of novels) that continues to push him into different styles of storytelling and filmic genres. His latest film Confessions (2010) saw him win the awards for best picture and best director at the 34^th Japan Academy Awards. That film was my first introduction to Nakashima, and I have since worked my way backwards through his earlier works that I have managed to get my hands on.

Kamikaze Girls seems to have been Nakashima’s first major film, and established his focus on female characters, something that was to become a habit that has continued with Memories of Matsuko and Confessions, his work becoming increasingly darker with each new film. But Kamikaze Girls contains almost no trace of the hardships and unrealised dreams of Matsuko or the intense psychological revenge drama of Confessions. Instead, it is a light, entertaining comedy in which two young girls who, despite their completely opposing subcultural styles; Lolita and Yanki, become unlikely friends. This collision of two different worlds, so based on image, takes the kind of jokes that have become cliché in this kind of movie and puts a new Japanese spin on them. Momoko is a friendless, lone Lolita in a small country town who fantasises about being born in the Rococo era, while Ichigo is a hard talking, head-butting, delinquent biker girl who rides a bright pink scooter. Their worlds and personalities could not be further apart:

“What are you listening to?”

“Johann Strauss.”

“I don’t know that band.”

The setting of the film, Shimotsuma, Ibaraki, is almost like the third main character of the film. Nakashima has made great use of its beautiful green landscapes and isolated roads, coupling them with his glowing, colourful style while also including the flashing lights of pachinko parlours and the cartoon-like restaurants and shops. Momoko’s opening monologue describing the town and its inhabitants could even stand on its own as a hilarious short film! The whole film seems to be bathed in a beautiful hyper-real light, which, along with the brilliant costuming and candy-store visuals, creates a fantastical daydream of a film. Nakashima seems to bend the rules of reality almost to breaking point, characters fly through the air on a whim, appear on television in interviews that act as dramatic asides, and even some short animated sequences are included. One of my favourite scenes sees the locals of Shimotsuma lapsing, Broadway musical style, into a tongue in cheek advertisement for local clothing store Jusco, complete with superimposed text and prices.

While the story isn’t earth shatteringly original, and does follow the buddy movie kind of formula, it is entertaining enough to make sure that it doesn’t become simply an exercise in art direction, and does contain some hilarious moments and particularly creative gags that toy with bleeping of copyrighted words and pointing out of Kanji spelling mistakes. Music plays a very important role in Nakashima’s films (I think he has directed some music videos for Japanese bands), Memories of Matsuko was something of a musical, while Confessions boasted a soundtrack quite close to perfection. However, the Kamikaze Girls soundtrack was a bit hit and miss for me, some of the original compositions by film and anime scoring legend Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, check it out) are beautiful, (as has come to be expected from her) the wide range of which serves the movie quite well, but other inclusions of pop music I found hair pulingly annoying. The acting is great throughout, and not just from the two female leads. Momoko’s mother and father are hilariously juvenile, and just about every other character seems to be an extravagant caricature, just waiting with some funny one-liner to help propel this hyperkinetic film along. Momoko in particular has developed some quirky and interesting philosophies about life, informed and shaped by her hopeless parents and obsession with Lolita clothing.

Kamikaze Girls is a film about friendship and fashion, and while I’d say it’s more a film aimed at girls, but I still found plenty to enjoy thanks to Nakashima’s visuals and offbeat humour. I found it particularly interesting to continue exploring Nakashima’s work, particularly to track the changes in his visual style, overall tone and characterisation of principal female characters. I will most definitely be writing about his other work in the future, so stay tuned.