Stratosphere Girl

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Stratosphere Girl
Stratosphere Girl film poster
Directed by	Matthias X. Oberg
Produced by	Karl Baumgartner
Written by	Matthias X. Oberg
Starring	Chloé Winkel, Jon Yang
Distributed by	TLA Releasing
Release date(s)	9 September 2004 (Germany)
Running time	90 min
Language	English, Dutch, Japanese
IMDb profile

Stratosphere Girl is a 2004 film written and directed by Matthias X. Oberg.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This film is about a Belgian teenager, Angela, who is skilled at drawing. At the encouragement of an attractive Japanese DJ she meets and subsequently falls in love with, she goes to Japan to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen who like to meet with young blonde women.

The story is a comment on the way in which people react and what shapes their existence.

From the start, the film is very surreal with unique characters, clear and sharp cinematography, slow panning camerawork. Manga drawings are used to enhance the plot and ambience. Added to this, is the completely alien culture of rich Japanese businessmen who gather together in bizarre clubs to associate with blonde English speaking darlings.

Angela seeks work at the aforementioned club, and after having been begrudgingly let in, she is met with derision by the other girls working there. However soon she proves to be a favourite among the patrons. From the luck of the fight that got her employed as a worker at the club, through to her reactions and behaviour — the way she, despite spurning some of the other girls for acting like hussies and bitches, pretends to be a Lolita-style 15-year-old to please the businessmen; the idea shown is that which questions the way people react to situations, and why.

The main plot is of a sinister undertone of the possibility of murder of the girl [Larissa] whom Angela replaced. As the film goes on we learn that Larissa was instead, not supposedly murdered by Japanese men in search of sick sexual fantasy fulfillment, but at the envious and jealous hands of her workmates. Here again, the question is raised: why do people act the way they do? What inspired the violence that resulted in the stabbing of Larissa? What circumstances cause such responses?

In the last scenes we learn however, that Larissa lives, furthermore this is when Angela is heralded with the contract to be a Manga artist. This adds to the surreal situation of what happened. The whole story seems to be of darkness, depravity, and the depth of the human state; that is, what makes us, us. The overwhelming feeling of seedy Japanese businessmen, the illegal and alien idea of importing the women at the encouragement of the Japanese DJ boy; these show the surreal nature of what is going on. This enhances the concept of what is real and what isn't, what makes us who we are, and it raises all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of humanity.