''Stratosphere Girl'' (also known as ''The Stratosphere Girl'' in the United States) is a 2004 film from Germany written and directed by . The film is about a teenage girl who likes drawing Manga but ended traveling to Japan to work at an exclusive club for rich businessmen. She discovers disturbing case of murder as the film goes on.

Plot

Teenager Angela (Chloé Winkel), who is skilled at drawing, meets and falls in love with an attractive

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

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 are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

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 favorite among the patrons by pretending to be a

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession ...

-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.

External links

Official site
* 2004 films 2004 romantic drama films 2000s English-language films Films set in Japan Films shot in Cologne German coming-of-age drama films Films about interracial romance Films about comics Films about fictional painters Japan in non-Japanese culture 2000s German films English-language romantic drama films {{2000s-romantic-drama-film-stub