24-year-old German filmmaker Helene Hegemann might be a little obsessed with her own life, the blissed-out teenage years of drugs, sex, night club escapades, strung-out mornings and all forms of her cathartic excess. Yet the writer/director is also a little fixated on magical beasts; a unicorn here, some llamas there, a cute little waddling penguin appearing out of nowhere and of course, the strange little axolotl.
The central metaphor of “Axolotl Overkill” is a little too on the nose, or perhaps too on the tail of the weird, translucent-looking creature. The axolotl is an unusual species of Mexican salamander that remains in a larvae state all of its life. The axolotl never grows up. And this allegory cuts a little too close and obvious to the analogous idea of a young, neotenic protagonist living in developmental stasis. Perhaps it’s a little too nonsensical too — what the hell do amphibians have to do with any of this? Yet every other element of this stylish, striking coming-of-age drama, and its hedonistic overload is an adrenaline shock to the system, silly analogies and all.
But maybe it’s not that silly, really. These odd visions are her spirit animals appearing in moments of post-rave narcotic fog, whispering private little messages we’ll never get to hear. Because in the abstract, “Axolotl Overkill,” is a brash fable about a little girl fallen down the rabbit hole of self-immolation in search of finding herself through impulsive desire and abandon. It’s as if just one more cocaine rush might break down the final boundaries bordering epiphany.
The impressive, trippy and sometimes even cocky, directorial debut of the aforementioned helmer, describing Hegemann as a “preternaturally gifted 24-year old” is an understatement so bewildering, she must be despised in the catty circles of the ambitiously envious. After witnessing her uber-auspicious inaugural effort there’s a believable scenario where an awed class of film school undergraduates might just throw up their hands and drop out on the spot. Based on Hegemann’s controversial, best-selling book she wrote when she was 17 (!!!), the autobiographical ‘Axolotl’ explores Berlin’s club and drug scene through the dilated pupils of a young girl after the death of her mother. Centering on the pixie-ish Mifti, a 16-year-old who looks like she’s 13 and yet behaves like a manic woman twice her age, the drama finds the teenager in the throes of peak rebellion. Astonishingly, the woman who plays the unruly kid, a fearless Jasna Fritzi Bauer (Christian Petzold‘s “Barbara,” “About A Girl”), is actually 27-years-old and must possess the best genes in all of Germany if not the entire E.U.
As Mifti’s rich, self-involved father remains distant and an aunt tries to keep her in check, the brazen girl’s adolescent angst spirals out of control. She’s Marlon Brando retorting, “What do you got?” in “The Wild One” when asked what he’s rebelling about; anything and everything. Soon, reckless behavior becomes dangerous overkill when Mifti befriends Ophelia (Mavie Hörbiger), an emotionally-stunted actor and drug addict who enables the teen’s worst tendencies. What ignites the screen is a cocaine psychosis of debauchery within the cavernous walls of strobe-flashing, EDM-blaring dance clubs and the blackhole of no return. Simultaneously, Mifti begins to develop an unhealthy obsession with Alice (Arly Jover) an older woman she’s having an affair with. Nearly motivelessly angry, Mifti channels are her rage into sexcapades with random men, endless nights of uppers and opiates, and raving until the sun comes up.
A captivating experience, there’s a thin line between precocious and pretentious and Hegemann manage to dances wildly and liberally on both sides of the divide — like breaking cinema’s line of axis rules just because she can. And no fences can contain her impetuous, wild protagonist. “Axolotl Overkill” isn’t cordial either, as the fast-moving movie expects you to keep up and its elliptical editing, oblique nature, and surreal flourishes which can make for disjointed viewing at times. Covering similar ground to the recently released “White Girl,” a film about privilege and decadence, and the dreamy abandon of blurry docudrama “All These Sleepless Nights,” the director’s bold effort is electrically alive and throbbing with the elevated pulse of youth.
And those hallucinatory touches have such youthful audacity. Mifti’s spirit animal deliriums could be fanciful tangents, but all of these feverish images and seizure-inducing dance club lights are too hypnotic to dismiss. If “Axolotl Overkill” is style over substance, fine, but oh boy, that kinetic style. Sonically booming, the filmmaker’s soundtrack and use of music is also rather superb and it produces more spellbinding embellishments mostly of uninhibited dancers hurtling themselves towards nowhere. Gill Scott Heron’s “Me And The Devil” and a modern cover are a musical theme and the movie’s sultry use of soul and R&B further suggest a maturity beyond the filmmaker’s age.
If you’ve got to knock the raw and fairy tale-esque “Axolotl Overkill” (and you can) or anything besides its precious metaphors and pretensions, the movie’s heedless rebellion may feel a little hyperbolic and one-note by the end of its 95-minute run. And its jet-fueled flames of adolescence arguably hit fumes of exhaust; nevertheless, Hegeman’s brash picture burns brightly to the very end. If “Axolotl Overkill” ever overdoses on its dreamy, feverish style, it’s trainwreck-y, can’t-turn-away qualities ultimately rise and consumes you like a blaze of youth in revolt. [B+]
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