KAMIKAZE HEARTS

USA | 1986 | 77 min

Combining direct cinema and docudrama, Juliet Bashore’s debut focuses on the intense relationship between two women who work in the porno film industry: the more cynic, more experienced Sharon “Mitch” Mitchell and the younger newcomer, Tina “Tigr” Mennett. The relationship reaches high levels of toxicity not only due to the inner dynamics of the couple but also to the context, in which drugs play a significant role, and to the effort to oppose the conventional patterns in a male-dominated society by way of unconventional and ultimately self-destructive means. At once excruciating and fascinating, Kamikaze Hearts casts a direct gaze on the bodies, feelings, and lives that these two women put at stake, telling an intimately personal story between the ups and downs of a fiery passion. A hot story of love, sex, and drugs, but also a mesmerizing document of an underground, pre-gentrification San Francisco. (a.s.)