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Released by: TLA Releasing
Released on: 11/18/2003
Director: Shion Sono
Cast: Mai Hosho, Takashi Nomura, Rolly, Yoko Kamon, Kimiko Yo, Hideo Sako
Year: 2002
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The Movie:
The first scene of Shion Sono's Suicide Club (a.k.a. Suicide Circle) portrays the graphic depiction of fifty-four Japanese schoolgirls lining up and holding hands along the tracks in a subway station, and subsequently throwing themselves onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train, and ultimately resulting in a torrent of bloodshed.
A detective and his cohorts set out on an investigation into how and why this happened results in some unusual discoveries along the way as some clues are revealed to him via email courtesy of a mysterious character named 'The Bat.' As the film progresses, more and more suicides occur, and a Japanese pop girl band rises to fame across the country.
Is there a connection between the recent string of suicides occurring across the land? The detectives aim to find out but things get trickier when 'The Bat' ends up kidnapped by a strange cult that lives in a bowling alley, lead by an effeminate chap who goes by the subtle moniker of Genesis and is prone to breaking out into song at the drop of a hat.
Considering that Japan has a higher suicide rate than anywhere else in the world, you'd think that using it as a metaphor for what is essentially a strange black comedy about the state of the country wouldn't go over too well. I'm not sure how it did financially in it's native country but it seems to have found a decent cult following since it's release and there's been no shortage of hype around the film over the last year or so.
The main problem with the film is that the opening is so intense that the rest of the film isn't quite able to live up to it. There are a couple of moments after it that come close (the contact point outside the cafeteria window and the mother chopping the radishes are both scenes that spring instantly to mind) but none of them hit you like the opening scene does.
Two thirds of the way through though, starting with the abduction of 'The Bat,' things take a drastic though decided turn for the weird as the viewer is barraged with a few final scenes that, although they do bring a sense of closure to the film, still leave quite a few questions unanswered and are opt to leave your mind a little flustered over what you've just finished watching.
So is there a deeper meaning behind the ambiguous last half hour of the film? Well, probably. It's not set in stone exactly what the director was trying to say but I don't think it's going out on a limb to interpret the whole film as an ironic take on what Japanese society has become. In a sense, Japan has become distanced from itself in that it seems to be stemming further and further from it's own cultural roots and adapting more and more western ideals. In a sense, committing cultural suicide, possibly explaining the motive of using Japanese children (uncorrupted?) as the antagonists behind the rash of suicides that occurs during the film.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The image is presented widescreen but is not enhanced for anamorphic sets and suffers from some ugly compression artifacts during the darker scenes. A green hue is also evident during a few scenes but this might be because of the lighting. The lighter scenes that take place indoors or outside in the sun look fine.
The movie is presented in a Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese language track with burned in English subtitles. Overall the sound is fine, with some nice bass response and a few nice moments of atmosphere conjured up from the front channels. The fact that you can't remove the subtitles is slightly annoying though, and they do contain a couple of typos in them as well.
The TLA DVD has a couple of trailers for various catalogue titles, including Suicide Club. Interestingly enough, the trailer contains a scene involving a fax machine spewing out a woman's hair that is not in the actual film itself.
The Final Word:
Suicide Club is worth a look if you're into films that aren't necessarily easy to explain. While it doesn't really fall into the category of surrealism, it does leave enough out in the open to at least be legitimately weird.