Kamikaze
Girls (2004): An Analysis
The scene in question begins with a
dissolve that transitions from a scene of Momoko in the casino to an upward-facing
shot of the clouds, which are glowing yellow from the sunlight. Momoko’s subdued
voiceover aids the transition between the two shots. An immediate cut to the
next shot shows Ichigo from behind, sitting on her bike and talking on the phone
as cars speed past her. The camera tracks forward, slowly revealing more of her
as she continues her conversation. Another cut takes the audience to a close-up
of Momoko in her garish attire that includes a frilly, white hairpiece, beads
in her hand, and a white top that blooms on her shoulders.
Behind her is a chain-link fence and green
foliage out of focus, and the scene is again lit in a gold glow from the
late-afternoon sunlight. She has light makeup on her face, wears a flat, almost
exhausted, expression, and she is talking on a pink phone. She tells Ichigo
that she has to see her, to which her friend replies, “Where are you?” as she
leans back on her bike. 
Up to this point, the morbid Momoko had acted callously
in response to Ichigo’s attepts at friendship, so this exchange marks one of
the pivotal moments in the protagonist’s transformation. Tetsuya Nakashima, the
film’s director, cuts to a wide angle shot of train tracks surrounded in more
vegetation and fencing. The camera pans slightly to the left to reveal an old
woman seated close to the lens and Momoko can be seen seated on the far side of
the tracks.
Nakashima returns to Ichigo, shooting her from a low angle as she
laughs and agrees to see Momoko. The only notable sound in this sequence,
besides the characters’ voices, is the whirring of cars next to Ichigo. The
next shot returns the viewer to the train tracks, where Momoko is still seated
and Ichigo now paces on the other side of the tracks. The blue sky takes up
most of the frame, with a yellow glow in the right side, and the two girls are
separated symmetrically by the brown tracks between the two platforms.
From there,
the camera shows closer shots of the two girls on each side of the tracks as
they discuss Momoko’s issue with starting her assignment for Akinori Isobe’s
Baby, The Stars Shine Bright clothing boutique. Returning to the initial shot
of the two characters on either side of the track, Ichigo proceeds to jump into
the tracks and shorten the distance between them as she encourages Momoko,
visually symbolizing the bridged gap between the two girls in their relationship.
Ichigo climbs up to where Momoko is seated and takes an authoritative tone as
she tries to motivate her friend, above whom she stands in the low-angle shot.
The
same wide shot of the train tracks now shows both girls on the same side as
Ichigo answers her phone and begins to talk while Momoko looks on with a
neutral expression. With the plants blowing in the wind around them, the two
girls are shot at low angles as Ichigo agrees to meet someone “at the Buddha”
at 2:00pm the next day. She jumps back down into the tracks as Momoko inquires
about the phone call. Ichigo says it was “nothing,” now pacing in the tracks.
An immediate cut to a (presumably nearby) building shows Ichigo leaning against
a doorframe while the camera tracks to the right to reveal seated behind her inside
the building on a bench in the left side of the frame with her bags and her white
umbrella. Ichigo’s black skirt and top are noticeable in the orange glow of the
dusk sunlight. Cars pass down the road in the distance and a barber’s pole spins
across the street. A cat enters the frame in front of Ichigo. 
She then exits
the frame and the revving of her bike breaks the silence that had been cast
over the majority of the scene. A glowing orange shot of Momoko at eye level presents
her watching as her friend drives away. Behind her is an opening that shows the
bright sky and an out-of-focus schedule. Momoko appears concerned as her friend
had just told her that she was going to leave the gang that had been such an
integral part of her life. The next shot shows her friend driving down the
street, around the corner, and out of site.
As stated, this scene is a key moment in the film’s story and the development of the two characters. Up until this moment, the two characters’ friendship had been largely one-sided. They had met when Ichigo answered Momoko’s ad offering her dad’s knock-off designer apparel. From there, most of their time spent together had seemingly been on Ichigo’s terms and mostly without Momoko’s consent. Before this scene, the tough Ichigo had handed Momoko, an expert in sewing, her jacket to stitch up, a sign of her trust in her new friend. Meanwhile, Momoko had encountered a degree of stress for one of the first times in her life, as she was given an assignment from Isobe, who had been impressed by her needlework, to add designs onto a sample dress. Ichigo had also been troubled as she lost who had been her “first love,” a man that the two girls had met playing pachinko. At this point of the film, including the scene from the analysis, the story and the way it is presented has a bit of a tonal shift. Prior to these developments, the story had featured this unlikely friendship between two friends with incompatible interests and attitudes. It had also been ironic and comedic in its presentation of the material, with Momoko’s narration often taking sardonic tones or matching with the scene in humorous ways. The film’s dialogue, especially including her narration, jokes about real-world references like Jusco, a large chain-store, and the yakuza, with which Momoko’s father had connections prior to her birth. The two characters themselves contrasted each other, and even contrasted their own appearances. Momoko, the cutesy member of the Lolita subculture, was the more indifferent and callous one, expressing a lack of interest in friendship, her family, or anything other than her clothing. On the other hand, Ichigo, the tough and rugged gang member and motorcycle rider, was the friendlier (though in her own way) and affectionate character between the two.
These scenes, culminating in the one at the train tracks, represent a convergence of their emotional arcs, as both girls seem emotionally vulnerable, yet trusting in each other as friends. Momoko sheds her apathy and callous attitude toward her friend and the world and gets emotionally invested in their relationship and her assignment instead of living her previously hedonistic lifestyle. Likewise, Ichigo shows that she is vulnerable and can be hurt by things in life, despite her persistence throughout the story. The scene at the train tracks subverts both the audience’s expectations for the characters and the film’s humorous and ironic tone due to the emotional moment that the girls share despite a narrative that was mostly full of jokes and largely devoid of feelings. The film, especially Momoko’s musings in her voiceovers, plays with ideas of fate and the meaning of life in different ways, as well, and often dismisses them for comedic purposes. However, this scene, again, answers these questions and responds to Momoko’s hedonism by showing the audience that there might be more to life than just consumption or involvement in some subculture. Instead, these characters find some form of meaning in their friendship, allowing them to realize that their clothing and their lifestyles were not all that mattered.
The film’s style and form largely reflected this story and the developments that take place. As was stated, there was a large amount of humor and sarcasm in the film’s dialogue, but it also manages the same with its visual component. In fact, the audience is introduced to Momoko as she stands in the middle of a vast green farmland in her pink Rococo attire and umbrella, directly contrasting the assumption of where the viewer expects this cutesy Lolita character to be. She then immediately looks down to find herself standing in cow feces and the credits begin with her trying to scrape it off her pristine shoes. This introduction to the story and the character give the audience an immediate understanding of how the film’s humor will look and what to expect. Other scenes feature text over the shot and characters breaking the fourth wall, like the scene in which Momoko passes some roadside countryfolk and their conversation soon devolves into what is basically a commercial for Jusco. Oftentimes, the composition of a shot would feature symmetry or patterns that gave the film a stylized appearance and these backgrounds often contrasted with the characters in them, whether it was Momoko in her country home or Ichigo in the Rococo restaurant. These shots were frequently rich in color and had a wide palette, reflecting Momoko’s garish aesthetic. In a way, it seemed almost like a visual novel with the framing and the colors and text, which is unsurprising given its source material. Similarly, the music was playful and jaunty, almost like Baroque music, in scenes with Momoko and often featured distorted rock music for shots of Ichigo. Other than that, the dialogue, and the protagonist’s voiceovers, the most recurrent sounds were the insects and animals of the countryside, which gives the audience a bit more farmland emersion to contrast with Momoko’s lifestyle.
However, like with the narrative and character development, the film’s form shifts somewhat in these more emotional scenes, including the scene by the track station. In the scene in the city, the music gets folksy and lo-fi while images of the girls in the city streets play in an aesthetic that reflects home video. In fact, the whole film gets a lot quieter in these scenes, with a slower, piano-driven track plays over the more emotional moments. Finally, in the scene at the tracks, there is no music and the only sound that is really present is the hum of the cars. Additionally, there are no humorous visuals or cartoonish shots of either of the characters. Instead, it mostly features a warm yellow and orange glow that reflected the warmth between the two girls after everything they have been through together. The scene featured closeups to try to establish their emotional states and showed visual language that conveyed even deeper meaning to their interactions, like the gap between them that eventually gets bridged. Overall, the scene completely redirects the course that the film is on in a way brings a degree of seriousness to both the film’s form and the characters in their relationship and desires.
