 Suicide Club (2002) In the opening minutes of Suicide Club, 54 giggling Japanese schoolgirls on a train platform clasp hands and, on the count of three, leap in front of the oncoming train, showering the surroundings in blood and guts. What looks like it will be a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top gorefest a la Battle Royale, or a twisty, chilly spookfest a la Ringu, instead becomes an engaging police thriller, with the cops trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious "suicide club" with a nefarious and inscrutable Internet tie-in. Then, just as you settle in for a dark and moody Fear.com-type thing, Suicide Club shifts gears yet again and suddenly it's in some kind of hybrid ground between Velvet Goldmine and Silence of the Lambs. The ostensible center of the suicide club is revealed to be a glammed-out, coked-up group of violent neo-Droog anarchists, who, in the film's most baffling moment, sing us a song. Yet this is another dead-end corner of the maze, as the film now morphs into more of a Heathers-styled black comedy, with the social messaging of Natural Born Killers and Fight Club. The circle tightens, and ends up centered on a "Kids Incorporated"-esque bubblegum pop group called Dessert that sends subliminal messages to its fans via seemingly innocuous songs like "Mail Me." It's a magic show with so much sleight-of-hand that I'm sure some people simply turn it off in disgust and dismiss it as an incoherent mess. Indeed, the reviews I've read about it all seem to focus on the opening sequence (certainly one of the most striking and ingenious two minutes of cinema ever made) and the tight-veer-left of the glam scene, simply commenting on the content. But it's the context here that makes Suicide Club one of the most worthwhile and challenging films I've seen in the past few years. Each set piece, frequently seeming unrelated to the other scenes and sometimes giving the impression of pure David Lynchian tomfoolery, serves the major theme about society's dependence on pop culture for identity and meaning. As the final scene plays out, thick with ambiguity, the message that comes across is one of being self-connected, not looking for cues from the illusory world of celebrity, and choosing one's peers for growth rather than joining groups for safety. A film that begins with 54 simultaneous suicides ends up telling us to follow our hearts. It's a strange mix, but nothing arbitrary or unintentional about it. I've heard that the director's output has careened with some fluidity between big-budget mainstream films and flat-out, straight-to-DV gay porn, so that may inform the sensibility here, as the movie draws from disparate pools to offer you one mindfuck of a concoction. It's a brew that will simply not be to the taste of those who just want a Pepsi. But those who will indulge in a good bottle of absinthe from time to time will be able to choke this stuff down and find what is in it to be found.
Review by Monger C. Jurisprudence |