FilmFan
11-24-2009, 05:11 AM
http://upieksanupiek.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/suicide_club.jpg
Suicide Club aka Jisatsu sākuru
Running time: 99 minutes
Directed by: Shion Sono
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi
IMDB rating: 6.7
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312843/
The opening scene of Suicide Club takes place at a train station. Despite the tanoy reminding people to stand back from the platform, a large group of schoolgirls stand in a line, hold hands, and take a step forward. They then count to three and as the train approaches they jump into its path.
A bag is left at the scene, and when the police look inside they find a strange circle of flesh, made up of around 200 individual pieces of skin stitched together. Part of these turn out to be from those who have just killed themselves, but many of them are unidentifiable. As less than 200 people have commited suicide, they start to think that there may be a cult and that more deaths are to come.
We then cut to a school, where several groups of students are having lunch. One of them declares an intention to kill herself, and her friends seem to think that it's a good idea. This quickly spreads to the other nearby pupils, and after only a few seconds of consideration, they all decide to hold hands and jump off of the roof, and down they go.
This creates quite a puzzling case for the police to deal with, as they have a large number of deaths to investigate, but no idea if a crime has even been committed or what the hell is going on in the minds of all of these people that causes them to act this way.
A few times I've read other people's reviews of various films and seen them comment on the score (and by that I mean the music of the film, not how highly people score it out of 10 or whatever). I can't think of many films where I was impressed by the music chosen for certain scenes. That kind of thing just doesn't do much for me, I guess. In this instance however I disliked that in the opening mass suicide scene, they played a strange carnival/circus-type song that just didn't fit the event at all. Maybe it would've worked in a comedy, but it wasn't suited to a film that doesn't feature any jokes and obviously takes itself seriously.
Though there is of course a story being told, I realised quite soon into it that Suicide Circle is a film of implied meaning, social commentary, philosophical arguments and metaphors. Obviously I don't want to give away any spoilers and won't do so, but to give one example, there is a child character who when talking, stops to clear his throat after each sentence. Why? I wasn't too sure, but one poster on a message board felt that this was a metaphor for how there is a younger generation of Japanese children/young adults struggling to find its voice, and I think that's a better reason that anything that occured to me.
Sometimes I can watch a film and feel as if I've understood everything that the director was trying to say. Other times I feel that I've missed the point entirely. In this instance, I feel that I got the basic gist of much of it, but there are still a lot of aspects that are puzzling. Apparently this was a common experience, and the sequel clears up a lot of questions, but I don't think they should've released it knowing full well that parts of it wouldn't make sense until a sequel came out 4 years.
I like that the film was original, and was clearly the result of a creative, intelligent person putting a lot of thought and effort into their work. On the other hand, I feel that in certain ways the film struggled because of the attempt to give it a deeper meaning. Having a great story that works well as a metaphor is impressive, but having a slightly flawed story that works as a metaphor is not quite as good, and I feel like that's what was on offer here.
Before watching this, I read a few brief comments elsewhere from people who seemed divided about the films merits, and I thought it might be a 'love it or hate it' kind of film. I can see why that may be the case to some extent, but I classify myself as being in the middle: I thought it was pretty good without reaching the heights it was aiming for.
Some films are good enough that you watch them once, enjoy them, and never think about them again. Although this isn't a great film, it is one that I think I'll probably end up watching at least once more at some point, and it stays in your mind for a while after having viewed it.
7.25/10
Suicide Club aka Jisatsu sākuru
Running time: 99 minutes
Directed by: Shion Sono
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi
IMDB rating: 6.7
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312843/
The opening scene of Suicide Club takes place at a train station. Despite the tanoy reminding people to stand back from the platform, a large group of schoolgirls stand in a line, hold hands, and take a step forward. They then count to three and as the train approaches they jump into its path.
A bag is left at the scene, and when the police look inside they find a strange circle of flesh, made up of around 200 individual pieces of skin stitched together. Part of these turn out to be from those who have just killed themselves, but many of them are unidentifiable. As less than 200 people have commited suicide, they start to think that there may be a cult and that more deaths are to come.
We then cut to a school, where several groups of students are having lunch. One of them declares an intention to kill herself, and her friends seem to think that it's a good idea. This quickly spreads to the other nearby pupils, and after only a few seconds of consideration, they all decide to hold hands and jump off of the roof, and down they go.
This creates quite a puzzling case for the police to deal with, as they have a large number of deaths to investigate, but no idea if a crime has even been committed or what the hell is going on in the minds of all of these people that causes them to act this way.
A few times I've read other people's reviews of various films and seen them comment on the score (and by that I mean the music of the film, not how highly people score it out of 10 or whatever). I can't think of many films where I was impressed by the music chosen for certain scenes. That kind of thing just doesn't do much for me, I guess. In this instance however I disliked that in the opening mass suicide scene, they played a strange carnival/circus-type song that just didn't fit the event at all. Maybe it would've worked in a comedy, but it wasn't suited to a film that doesn't feature any jokes and obviously takes itself seriously.
Though there is of course a story being told, I realised quite soon into it that Suicide Circle is a film of implied meaning, social commentary, philosophical arguments and metaphors. Obviously I don't want to give away any spoilers and won't do so, but to give one example, there is a child character who when talking, stops to clear his throat after each sentence. Why? I wasn't too sure, but one poster on a message board felt that this was a metaphor for how there is a younger generation of Japanese children/young adults struggling to find its voice, and I think that's a better reason that anything that occured to me.
Sometimes I can watch a film and feel as if I've understood everything that the director was trying to say. Other times I feel that I've missed the point entirely. In this instance, I feel that I got the basic gist of much of it, but there are still a lot of aspects that are puzzling. Apparently this was a common experience, and the sequel clears up a lot of questions, but I don't think they should've released it knowing full well that parts of it wouldn't make sense until a sequel came out 4 years.
I like that the film was original, and was clearly the result of a creative, intelligent person putting a lot of thought and effort into their work. On the other hand, I feel that in certain ways the film struggled because of the attempt to give it a deeper meaning. Having a great story that works well as a metaphor is impressive, but having a slightly flawed story that works as a metaphor is not quite as good, and I feel like that's what was on offer here.
Before watching this, I read a few brief comments elsewhere from people who seemed divided about the films merits, and I thought it might be a 'love it or hate it' kind of film. I can see why that may be the case to some extent, but I classify myself as being in the middle: I thought it was pretty good without reaching the heights it was aiming for.
Some films are good enough that you watch them once, enjoy them, and never think about them again. Although this isn't a great film, it is one that I think I'll probably end up watching at least once more at some point, and it stays in your mind for a while after having viewed it.
7.25/10