Stratosphere Girl

For all those who love beautiful pictures, charming music and comics.

The shots are well-framed and every scene has been thought out. Definitely a visually stunning movie. The storytelling is sophisticated and stylized as well. It is slow in some parts, but intentionally so, and the fact that it was didn't bother me. You will remember this film because of its unique and very recognizable director's style, the high energy level due to variation in static close-ups and dynamic scenes shot by the moving camera, a love story that touches but stays away from clichés, a plot that plays with stereotypes of comics and leaves enough space for your imagination. It is a piece of art in fact rather than a simple criminal story, a pleasure for eyes and soul, calm, peaceful and touching... and what can I say more: I strongly recommend it.

even if it did stretch the bounds of believability more than just a little. I enjoyed the performances, found the pacing adequate, and the story interesting and different. Maybe it is a good idea, once in a while, to simply abandon audience expectations and simply tell a fantastic little story.

Magnificent, slow-moving and well-told, "Stratosphere Girl" offers no intense drama, preferring instead a slow accumulation of subtle moments - shifts in color or seconds of eye contact - to express emotion and detail in the story. Such small, easily missed moments are surrounded by an eye-popping visual style - elegance is raised to unearthly levels throughout. An excellent film which has much to reveal.

When transitioning from the work week into the weekend or a short vacation, I like to watch a foreign film to transport my mind off into a different world. This movie about a European girl in Japan gave me a twofer, and filled the bill quite nicely. As a sci-fi, fantasy, and anime fan, I was intrigued by the title and subject, and was not disappointed.

Chloé Winkel, in what's apparently her first feature film, plays angelic-looking Angela, a just-graduated (from high school) cartoonist who scurries off to Japan on the recommendation of Yamamoto (Jon Yang), whom she meets at her graduation party, and who gives her the name and address of a friend with whom she can stay.

Once in Tokyo, Angela steps into a world of mystery, not just culturally, but also into one involving a missing bar girl. Entering the night club world herself provides Angela the opportunity to pursue the mystery; and her drawing what she "sees" blends imagination and reality into a mystery for the viewer.

This film exhibits an unusual sense of continuity. Fueled by flashes between our heroine's drawings and actual live scenes (the multi-tiered inner-city roadways in Tokyo were particularly interesting to this never-been-there American), the tale is told not as a straightforward continuous sequence wherein one scene leads inevitably to the next, but rather as a series of apparently disconnected scenes which have the effect of making the action appear to occur over a longer period of time than it actually does, i.e., what seems like weeks in actuality are mere days.

So what's real, what's imagination, what's flash-back or flash-forward? Suffice it to say that the ending, however "simplistic", breaks the wall between reality and fantasy, and resolves all mysteries for the viewer.

I am not the biggest art movie fan in the world, but sometimes these films drift into areas that interest me and I check the out. I usually end up scratching my head in bewilderment. This also is a confusing but gorgeus film. I loved it from the opening scenes to its strange ending. The film progresses by a series of well thought out scenes, the visual contents of which are more important than either the action or the plot. It is the imagery that makes it so intriguing, I guess. Well, I suppose it's hard to explain without writing a whole essay, but I definitely suggest you to watch it, provided you have nothing against Tokyo, comics or blond girls. It should be seen on a large screen, it is breathtaking!

A little strange at times, but since when has that been a bad thing? This nice and intelligent film is structured on many layers, full of intrigue and double meanings. The plot leaves some things unanswered, which is quite irritating, but not to consider as an actual flaw.

Some characters remind me of some of Lynch's disturbing, mysterious figures. And this German (?) director tries to give the film an extra layer via images, which he mostly succeeds.

I recommend it. It is exquisitely performed and filmed.