AMERIKA: A Notebook in Three Parts
A Film by Mika Johnson

When I was a kid, my father used to always say: "America is the best country in the world." He loved American food, American movies and most of all, American music. His biggest dream was to someday be American. His second biggest dream was to save up money, buy a big car, and drive across America, from New York City to California, where he hoped to surf the best waves in the world. Then one day, when I was nine, he disappeared. We never saw him again.

Amerika follows the mysterious travels of Kat, a young and attractive Japanese woman who abandons her coquettish lifestyle in Tokyo, to embark upon a surreal journey through the American landscape. We are introduced to Kat in the midst of her desperate attempt to break from the clutches of her frigid mother, a hostess club owner who forced her daughter into a profession of superficial decadence and emotional prostitution. Kat eventually escapes to America by lying and stealing from gullible clients who believe her empty promises of love and lust. When she finally reaches America, Kat encounters an array of eccentric characters while drifting between the city streets of New York and Chicago, the National Parks of Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone, and the desertscapes of Death Valley, in the attempt to reach the California shores along the Pacific Ocean. Contemplatively unraveled in three parts, Kat's story is concerned with the exploration of American values, the actualization of dreams, and Kat's eventual passage to self-awareness.

Motivated by tour books and postcards, Kat perpetually searches for the quintessential iconic American excursion; she is initially seduced by what she discovers, but soon becomes disillusioned by the inauthenticity of her experiences. A dark version of American history reveals itself, as Kat tumbles into the center of a disintegrating society, a tragic culture of extremes, beleaguered with manifestations of nostalgia.

Kat's more profound connections occur through the people she meets, all of whom represent unique facades of the American psyche. She meets the con man — a fast talker who pretends to offer friendly advice and then steals from her; the car salesman — a compassionate family man who helps Kat to regain her footing; the ice cream truck driver — a mischievous trickster who shows Kat the poetry of a Chicago ghetto; the opportunist — a professional gambler who encourages Kat to embrace American vices; and the teacher — an everyman, whose unapologetic view of life guides Kat to her eventual autonomy. She also unwittingly finds herself entangled with a gang of renegade bikers, bent on an uncanny revenge. To survive, Kat instinctively assimilates to her surroundings, literally and symbolically, continually playing a part to cope with these circumstances. But as destructive facets of American culture threaten to consume her, she begins the difficult path to recovering her identity.

While Amerika indulges in moments of dark humor, irony, and the absurd, the film ultimately endeavors to critique values attached to the 'American Dream,' its hopes and its excesses, all experienced through the perspective of a foreigner. At large, Amerika implicitly reveals a distressing sense of urgency concerning the American condition in flux, and the ramifications of its ideological, corporeal and environmental remnants upon future generations. The film ambitiously frames Kat's experiences through a play of genres such as Film Noir, Surrealism, and Hollywood Westerns to construct a deliberate and stylized palate, visually streamlining all of these overarching themes. Alongside these aesthetic considerations, a mixture of flashbacks, dream sequences, and sweeping montages affirm an earnest statement about Kat's emotional transformation throughout the course of her journey.

In the final act of Amerika, we witness Kat endure her most challenging physical and emotional test among the sands of Death Valley's unforgiving terrain. After outrunning forces determined to capture her, she comes face to face with her most defining moment of humility. By risking everything on the hopes of her father's dreams of America, Kat ultimately arrives at her own extraordinary awakening, standing at the threshold of a new mythic story of her own creation.