Stratosphere Girl
Encyclopedia
Stratosphere Girl is a 2004
film
written and directed by Matthias X. Oberg.
The film is about a Belgian
teenager who travels to Japan
to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen.
DJ
. Encouraged by him, she goes to Japan
to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen, who like to meet with young blonde women. From the start, the film is surreal with unique characters, clear and sharp cinematography, and slow panning camera work. Manga
drawings are also used to enhance the plot and ambiance.
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, despite having spurned some of the other girls, she soon proves to be a favourite among the patrons by pretending to be a Lolita
-style 15-year-old to please the businessmen.
The plot has a sinister undertone of the possibility of murder of a girl, Larissa, whom Angela has replaced. As the film goes on, we learn Larissa was possibly murdered, not by Japanese men in search of sick sexual fantasy fulfillment, but at the envious and jealous hands of her workmates. In the last scenes we learn Larissa lives and, furthermore, this is when Angela is heralded with the contract to be a Manga artist.
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
written and directed by Matthias X. Oberg.
The film is about a Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
teenager who travels to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen.
Plot
Belgian teenager, Angela (Chloé Winkel), who is skilled at drawing, meets, and subsequently falls in love, with an attractive JapaneseJapanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
. Encouraged by him, she goes to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen, who like to meet with young blonde women. From the start, the film is surreal with unique characters, clear and sharp cinematography, and slow panning camera work. Manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
drawings are also used to enhance the plot and ambiance.
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, despite having spurned some of the other girls, she soon proves to be a favourite among the patrons by pretending to be a Lolita
Lolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
-style 15-year-old to please the businessmen.
The plot has a sinister undertone of the possibility of murder of a girl, Larissa, whom Angela has replaced. As the film goes on, we learn Larissa was possibly murdered, not by Japanese men in search of sick sexual fantasy fulfillment, but at the envious and jealous hands of her workmates. In the last scenes we learn Larissa lives and, furthermore, this is when Angela is heralded with the contract to be a Manga artist.