Based on the real life relationship between the film’s leads Sharon Mitchell and Tigr Mennett, Julia Bashore’s docudrama follows Mitchell as she heads to San Francisco to act in a porn parody of Bizet’s Carmen, directed by Mennett. Originally conceived as a documentary about the pornography industry in San Francisco, Bashore changed the focus after meeting Mennett and turned the film into equal parts documentary of the people in the industry as well as a slightly fictionalized/staged look into the dynamics of Mitchell and Mennett’s sapphic relationship.  

Not shying away from frank depictions and discussions of sex and hard drug use, Kamikaze Hearts is gritty and honest in a way that few films admit. By creating a slight fiction around reality, we get to see people on screen act in a way that is arguably even more honest than if it was a straight documentary. While everything on screen is staged, everything about what’s happening on screen is real, the people are real. They are simultaneously acting, reenacting, and being documented. There is commentary on exploitation and misogyny in the porn industry that comes by way of having actual people involved in the industry replicate actual scenarios. Sometimes difficult to watch at times, there is a bravery in the filmmaking by everyone involved, both on-screen and behind the camera.  

More conspiratorial than voyeuristic, Kamikaze Hearts takes you by the hand into this world without much comment on it. This is a film that stands next to Orson Welle’s masterpiece F For Fake as a film whose unreality is at the core of its beauty and power. This film is a true gem of American queer cinema and independent filmmaking.