"Suicide Club" (2002)

(Originally released as Jisatsu Saakuru)

Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Akaji Maro, Masatoshi Nagase, Saya Hagiwara, Hideo Sako, Takashi Nomura

First, the lowdown: A string of suicides in Japan sets off a trend more disturbing than MySpace.

You really have to appreciate the WTF factor in Japanese cinema. There are so many films out there already that have been created merely to get a reaction out of the viewer, but the Japanese seem to have perfected that art form. Having attempted to kill myself on more than one occasion, I thought it amusing how this movie presents suicide as a concept. I also wryly thought it appropriate that it came from Japan, a place well known for it’s high youth suicide rate. As a crowded conformist culture, the kids of Japan are always striving to fit in somehow. But sometimes circumstances prevent someone from being just like everyone else, no matter how hard you try. (I can relate on this point a bit.)

This movie addresses none of that. We open at a subway station in Tokyo. As a train’s arrival is announced a group of schoolgirls line up on the platform and jump in front of the oncoming train IN UNISON. The same evening a nurse and her coworker whimsically fling themselves out of their office window. The police are stumped at the sudden upswing in suicides. None of the victims of the subway incident went to the same school. A mysterious phone call from someone calling herself “the Bat” points the investigating officers to a website that represents all of the suicides as a red or white dot, BEFORE THEY OCCUR.

A white sports bag is found at both the office where the nurses killed themselves as well as at the subway platform. In side is an enormous ribbon of human flesh that has been stitched together. The medical examiner points out that it’s comprised of 20cm squares of skin from different people. Also the skin samples match the remains of the victims, but appear to have been removed while the victim was still alive.

The major flaw of this movie (and I’m willing to believe that it’s because I’m not Japanese) is that after establishing a pretty kick-ass premise, the movie goes nowhere. Which is not to say that it’s boring per se: the body count rises ever more alarmingly and the background music gets increasingly inappropriate (one scene has a housewife happily cutting off her own hand in front of her 5-year old daughter). But eventually everything comes completely unhinged and while there is an attempt to explain things at the end, it raises more questions than it answers.

Line of the movie: “There are several bodies here. We’ll pry them apart later.”

Three and a half stars. Praise the Lord.