Kamikaze Girls

Between the frenetic quick-cuts, oversaturated, hyper-stylized visual language, and exaggerated, zany characters in Kamikaze Girls lies a thoughtful, affecting female friendship piece. The film also serves as solid evidence that director Tetsuya Nakashima can actually handle women much better than sophomore effort Memories of Matsuko would suggest.

Singer/actress Kyoko Fukada (the object-of-obsession pop star in Kitano’s Dolls) plays a disaffected teen living in rural Japan, and conveying what little personality and self-worth she has through her favorite style of dress: Lolita. For those unfamiliar, Lolita (usually paired with a Gothic in front) fashion is, more or less, frilly Victorian dresses and bonnets, most famously found in internationally known shops like Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (featured in the movie), and Metamorphose. Fukada’s Momoko asserts that her fascination with the decadent lifestyle of the similarly-outfitted Rococo period is the reason she wears the get-ups. At 17, she’s the right age to pull it off without being creepy or pity-inspiring, but is still an outcast in her farming village surroundings.

Eventually Momoko burns through her resources and finds herself too broke to feed her “happiness” (i.e. Lolita clothes). She remedies this by selling her dad’s old Versace bootlegs to a local, rough-around-the-edges girl biker Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya). So grateful for the discounted price Momoko charges her for the junk, Ichiko starts to hang around. Little by little—through soul-baring confessions, favors, scooter trips, and head butts—Ichiko wears down Momoko’s indifferent exterior and the two become, yes, unlikely friends. This development is handled subtly, and with minimal cheese. The two leading ladies make it all very believable, and very adorable, right up to the mildly badass ending showdown.

Coincidentally, I’d recently revisited two of my favorite extreme/thriller films (Japan’s 2LDK, and Hong Kong’s Koma), which also happen to deal with the unreasonable love/hate nature of many (if not most) female relationships. While in the former two, the girls express their ‘hate’ phases much more violently, Momoko and Ichiko’s bond still fits perfectly next to them as an excellent depiction of the xx/xx dynamic. And they didn’t even have to fight over some man to get there.