Suzy Nakamura, one of my favorite unrecognized actors, is brilliant in the low-budget movie Strawberry Fields (1997, by Rea Tajiri). Nakamura is a disturbed, destructive teen-ager, haunted by her dead kid sister and her family's past in the WWII Japanese-American interment camps. The film is undisciplined: it resembles a poem written by a talented, enthusiastic, but self-indulgent author. Some of the acting is amateurish (particularly in contrast to Nakamura's performance). But the story is strong, the sound track features excellent music by a variety of Chicago "alternative" bands, and the cinematography is striking in its mix of old and new stylistic elements. It's a worthwhile movie, offbeat and ultimately uplifting, though the ride is rocky along the way.

(caveat: Strawberry Fields includes sporadic harsh language, drugs, nudity, sex, violence, and insanity; cf. Stark Raving Mad (28 Oct 2005), MustLoveDogs (27 Aug 2006), ...)

TopicArt - TopicEntertainment - 2006-11-07

(correlates: MustLoveDogs, ListenToHim, Stark Raving Mad, ...)