Kamikaze Girls
A Japanese LAVERNE & SHIRLEY on Acid
When it comes to quirky and eccentric fashion, you can't beat Japan's youth culture. One current trend is the Lolita look, where teenage girls doll themselves up in frilly, Bo-Peep dresses full of embroidered lace and rococo romanticism. The amusing "Kamikaze Girls" shows what happens when one such delicate flower finds an unlikely ally with a rough and foul-mouthed girl from a biker gang.
Stylistically, "Kamikaze" outdoes Tarantino at his own flamboyant game. Director Nakashima Tetsuya, making his feature film debut after an award-winning career in commercials, is fearless with cinematic tricks. He jumps the narrative back and forth in time, employs numerous freeze frames and animation sequences, has characters talk directly to the camera and compiles a soundtrack that is schizophrenically mishmash.
In short, the premise of "Kamikaze" might be similar to a younger and kitschy "Thelma & Louise," but it is never less than appealingly surreal.
Japanese idol Fukada Kyoko is the bonnet-wearing Momoko, a high-schooler with a bad case of small-town ennui. Her only escape is to imagine herself among the aristocrats of 18th century French nobility. She meets Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a biker chick whose look is very different from Momoko. Ichiko looks more like Shirley Manson -- red lipstick and raccoon mascara eyes -- with a samurai robe. Despite their fashion differences, deep down the two are equally lonely and alienated misfits.
Not just another rebellious teen tale, "Kamikaze" also is wildly ironic fun. However, it is less a comedy than a full-on live-action manga. Tetsuya captures the book's sly yet brash commentary about Japanese society and its ever-conspicuous obsessions. At the same time, it also is a touching tale of friendship that is, like Ichiko, too cool to let its street-wise facade drop for even one sentimental minute.
Appropriately outlandish in parts but with a heart as golden as the cinematography's glinting sun, "Kamikaze Girls" might be kawaii cute, but it rules with its own brand of girl power. (A. Sun, Hollywood Reporter)
Kamikaze Girls
Sat & Sun March 4 & 5, 2006, 7:00 & 9:15, Muenzinger Auditorium
Japan, 2004, in Japanese, 102 min • official site
Tickets
10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission.
$7 w/UCB student ID,
$7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.
Parking
Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the
Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters
along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.
RTD Bus
Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus
International Film Series
(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.
First Person Cinema
(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.
C.U. Film Program
(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil
Grillo.
Celebrating Stan
Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.
C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts
Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.