Wonderfully offbeat film!

Please don't spend money on this.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In her high-school graduation party in Sweden, the Belgian Angela (Chloé Winkel) meets the Japanese DJ Yamamoto (Jon Yang) and tells him that she does not like to study, but draw, and she would like to travel to seek adventures. Yamamoto tells her that he has a friend, Monika (Tuva Novotny) that works as hostess in a nightclub for men in Tokyo and gives her address to Angela. The heroin Angela travels and meets Monika, and gets a job escorting executives in the club. When she finds that the Russian girl Larissa (Peggy Jane de Schepper) is missing, Angela decides to investigate the mystery and discovers a murder case."Stratosphere Girl" is a very original and intriguing story, presented in a stylish cinematography of film-noir showing Tokyo at night. The plot is totally unpredictable, never uses clichés and has an unexpected twist in the quite open end. While watching the movie, I found apparent flaws in the story that are very well resolved with the conclusion, when the viewer finally sees that the whole plot was fabricated by the imaginative Angela while drawing a "manga" at home. Like in a dream, Angela tells that she is "a visitor in her own world" and the story has a happy end and, disclosing the subtle line between reality and the fantasy of her cartoon. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Traços de 1 Crime" ("Traces of 1 Crime")

This film promised something but doesn't deliver. The story is simple enough, and quite watchable for the first hour of the film (apart from all of the shots of Tokyo highways used as cutaways), and then nothing. The ending is so juvenile. Was this written by a 12 year old, or did the film makers just run out of money and/or ideas? The storyline has the heroine of the film trying to track down a missing friend in Tokyo. She is constantly running into people that seem to know more than they are saying. The film seems to be building toward a showdown between our heroine and the bad guys and then... She finds her friend isn't dead and she is offered a job drawing cartoons for one of the bad guys. PLEASE!!!

The main character is a 18-year-old blond girl Angela. Her passion is to draw comics. After graduating from high-school she's going to look for some adventures... So Angela spontaneously takes up the idea of a Japanese DJ Yamamoto she meets at her graduation party ... and flies off to TOKYO! Everything she sees, she expresses in her drawings.. but some bad things are going on at her new working place... Someone has been murdered... Angela draws and draws... soon it seems, that reality and comics are mixed up.. where's the line between?Even though the artistic and technical side of mixing comics and "real-life" was interesting and even though it was shot in Tokyo..I have to tell, that I didn't like this movie. Max 3 points in 10 point scala. And those points are for the artistic side! And I'm sad, because I expected quite a lot from this film. So what was the problem for me? It was too slow, it was too naive and I'm sorry, but I wasn't so very thrilled about the actors. I have to tell you, that only one actor, Filip Peeters, (a "bad guy") left an impression for me.. I felt cold and even a little bit scared when I saw him on screen, so he LEFT an impression. The others didn't. By the way.. after I saw the film I remembered a film which I saw exactly one year ago.. last autumn -"Ruang rak noi nid mahasan"/"Last Life in the Universe" by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thailand, Japan; 2003). They are not comparable.People who like slow-on-going movies, a little bit romance plus "murder to be solved" and actually, a totally out-of-a-blue ending films, should go and see it.

For all those who love beautiful pictures, charming music and comics.The shots are well-framed and every scene has been thought out. Definitely a visually stunning movie. The storytelling is sophisticated and stylized as well. It is slow in some parts, but intentionally so, and the fact that it was didn't bother me. You will remember this film because of its unique and very recognizable director's style, the high energy level due to variation in static close-ups and dynamic scenes shot by the moving camera, a love story that touches but stays away from clichés, a plot that plays with stereotypes of comics and leaves enough space for your imagination. It is a piece of art in fact rather than a simple criminal story, a pleasure for eyes and soul, calm, peaceful and touching... and what can I say more: I strongly recommend it.