Y’all know how there were movies, music, or other forms of art that created a sense of nostalgia or an atmospheric mood that just lingers in your thoughts? It’s like you exactly can’t place what it was the experience gave you but you just continue to feel its presence? Suicide Club did that to me. I saw it last weekend and I can’t figure out what it said to me but it said enough to make me forever have displaced imagery, sounds, and voices in my head that’s begging for some comfort it what it was.
Suicide Club is a Japanese film written and directed by Sion Sono. He’s a director who had a reputation as a former gay porn director turned poetic experimental director. I had no knowledge of this when I watched Suicide Club. So, don’t say,”Ahhhhh… that’s why you’re into this weird shit.” And, no, I still don’t know why I’m into this weird shit. If you folks had read any reviews/synopsis about this film (or saw the movie), you probably know about the infamous scene in the first 5 minutes of this movie where 54 Japanese schoolgirls hold hands in unison standing on the edge of an underground street train platform. And they chant (in Japanese, of course),”One… Two… Three…” Then jump in front of the approaching street train which results in a mass suicide. Blood splatter, crushed heads, and hacked off limbs are visually displayed for the viewer. Hence, the beginning of a suicide club. Now, as you read so far, is this movie for you? I wonder if it is for me. I’ve viewed countless, violent films throughout my last 30 years or so. I’m not saying that as a brag, but more, as a matter of fact. And, no, that is not why I’m into this weird shit. But this movie was a bit more violent to make me squeamish… mentally. It just fucked with my head. Besides the suicide pacts, there’s the image of skin stitched together like a roll of tape, and that… that… voice of a child waxing philosophy of “what we don’t understand” through a speaker phone as he coughs after every sentence. (Experience the film, don’t make me explain.) But there’s an art in this film. An art that can’t be attained by an uncultured mind or a film illiterate. (I offended a bunch of you. That’s alright; it’s just that you’re probably uncultured and illiterate. And I can’t please everbody.) There’s a certain beauty in it… in how suicide is not an answer… and that is probably an understanding of why I’m into this weird shit.