Summary
A low-key superpowers film that looks at a coming of age story through the lens of the supernatural with a backdrop of the pandemic.
Remember when we were all stuck inside on and off for a couple of years there? As difficult as it was for us adults, while we found new ways of working and communicating, the weirdness was tenfold for school kids. An already uncertain future seemed even more so, and there was now yet another way for their young lives to be oppressed by those in power.
Which is where Shinichi Fujita’s MAYHEM GIRLS (メイヘムガールズ) plonks us down, in a Japan that’s slowly coming out of the pandemic. Nevertheless, teachers are clamping down on mask wearing, festivals are being cancelled, and there are sanitation stations at the entrance to school.
So, in a wonderful bit of magic realism, a group of girls is suddenly given a short-lived set of powers. It’s a fun but obvious analogy for this particular time in one’s life. The four girls, who gather around the de facto leader Mizuho, are initially confused by their powers. From telepathy to more direct mind control, they eventually literally break free and fly when working as a set.
Naturally, the path isn’t a smooth one. When Mizuho becomes interested in a boy, they are convinced to use their newfound talents for less altruistic reasons. From robbing banks to going full Carrie, the mayhem of the title goes into full effect in the back half of the film.
Fujita does a lot with an evidently small budget. The effects for the various abilities are incredibly restrained: objects rattle or fly across the room. When the girls begin to fly, some of this looks a little dodgy around the edges, but it all just adds to the charm of this small-scale character study.
After all, this is a coming of age film, and minor crime sprees, rebellious activities, and doing uncharacteristic things for temporary love interests could happily fit into any other school-based drama. When asked to explain why she is doing what she’s doing, Mizuho is incredibly self-aware: “We’re high school girls, we never know what we want.”
MAYHEM GIRLS takes on a different spin now that we are a little bit further away from the restrictions of the pandemic, even if they lasted a little longer in Japan than some other countries. So, when the events of the film fade as fast as their adolescent powers, all that’s left is the inevitability of what comes after this bubble in their lives. Soon, they too will become like the people who they rebelled against for so many years. Or, as one of the titular girls puts it, “We’ll be normal. The world will be normal.”
2022 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Shinichi Fujita | WRITERS: Shinichi Fujita, Erika Nakayama | CAST: Mizuki Yoshida, Manami Igashira, Amane Kamiya, Hina Kikuchi | DISTRIBUTOR: New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14-30 July 2023 (NYAFF)
