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Suicide Club (2002)
Description[from Freebase]
Suicide Club, known in Japan as Suicide Circle (自殺サークル, Jisatsu Sākuru) is a 2002 Japanese independent horror film that gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its controversial subject matter and gory presentation, and has since developed a significant cult following. It won the Jury Prize for "Most Ground-Breaking Film" at the Fantasia Film Festival. The movie was written and directed by Sion Sono. It deals with a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes Japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior. On May 26, 54 teenage schoolgirls gather at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo to commit mass suicide. As the train approaches the station, they line up on the edge of the platform, join hands, and throw themselves in front of the oncoming train. In the midst of the subsequent chaos, someone leaves a small white bag on the platform. Meanwhile, in a Tokyo hospital during a night shift, the security guard is left astonished as one nurse disappears without a trace and another jumps out of a window. Another white bag is found in the hospital.
Review
Start by taking a peek at the uncommon amount of gore: Bodies explode when they impact the ground, like enormous water balloons filled with blood. A belt made of human flesh shows up on a subway platform. Limbs and heads are everywhere. This is not a film for the faint of heart.
As a blood-spewing horror flick alone, Suicide Club is worth its salt. The thriller part of the flick is a bit cryptic, meandering through a series of mass suicides and Internet bulletin board investigations until the presumed 'suicide club' ringleaders are revealed in a musical number that takes place in an abandoned bowling alley. The sequence makes absolutely no sense, until -- crazily -- suspicion eventually falls on a teenybopper musical group of 12-year-old girls called Dessart (or Desert, or Dessret, depending on the subtitle of the moment). Are there subliminal messages in their music telling kids to off themselves?
The film is at once utterly grotesque and uncommonly compelling. It's strange and unlikely, but Japanese thrillers always seem to thrive on the supernatural poking its head into the mundane world. Suicide Club suffers from its share of translation issues, but there's something about a dozen children leaping off the roof of their school that is cinematically universal.
Recommended.
Aka Jisatsu circle , Suicide Circle.
Lined up and ready for fun.
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licensed under the GFDL
