SXSW Film Reviews
What seems to be an uplifting look into the liberating nature of women's pro wrestling in Japan quickly becomes an exploration into the psyches of the women who live it
By Kate X Messer, Fri., March 16, 2001
Gaea Girls
D: Kim Longinotto, Jano Williams. (35mm, 106 min.)"When you see the wrestlers in the ring ... They are so alive, they shine," says an earnest Takeuchi Saika, a trainee at the Gaea wrestling camp in Japan. "I want to be like that. It's my dream." Women's pro wrestling is serious business here -- different in look and attitude from its American counterpart. It's a sport of commitment and honor, of big bodies and short, buzzed haircuts, not for the faint-hearted, and the directors of this somewhat spotty yet still quite powerful documentary don't hold back. The film follows Takeuchi as she endures dropkick after headlock at the hands of her demanding and oddly maternal trainer, popular heroine Nagayo Chigusa. What seems to be an uplifting look into the liberating nature of women's pro sports (Republica's mid-Nineties megahit "Ready to Go" peppers the proceedings) quickly becomes an exploration into the psyches of the women who live it. And in this turn, Gaea Girls leaves a few unturned stones: What is the cultural context of this fight club in Japanese society? Is it accepted or merely tolerated? Is there a male paradigm from which it springs? (Hinted at as Chigusa waxes nostalgic for her father's harsh coaching.) Where the film succeeds is in taking the audience behind the scenes into a culture and mindset, free of judgment and conclusions, offering an unflinching study of the resilience of the human spirit and how it can suplex a woman to her dreams. (Dobie 2, 3/15, 3:45pm; Dobie 2, 3/17, 7pm)