suicide club ( film )
buy the kindle ebook edition of santa monica suicide club from amazon ...
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next month, our attention turns to hayao miyazaki’s 1997 animated film princess mononoke, which shares themes with kurosawa’s dersu uzala. the full film club schedule is available on the film club page .
offscreen: i remember when i read about the suicide club that you were thinking at that point of making three films that were connected. is this film part of a trilogy with the suicide club & noriko’s dinner table ?
sion sono is a master of strange. suicide club is nothing short of weird. . if you don' t know sion sono then i recommend you see strange circus and leave suicide club last .
who are you? an analysis of sion sono' s suicide club and kiyoshi kurosawa' s cure .
our film club title for the month of july is akira kurosawa’s 1975 dersu uzala, the only film that kurosawa filmed outside of japan .
who are you? an analysis of sion sono' s suicide club and kiyoshi kurosawa' s cure. : truefilm
suicide squad is undergoing reshoots to add ‘humour and lightness’ into the film, according to reports .
kyoto mourns about this and she tells saya that she knows the truth. she is seen as taken captive by the other suicide club members, and the following day her ear was pierced with the club' s ceremonial tattoo .
2007 el club de los suicidas / the suicide club (santiago) director: roberto santiago production: tornasol films, spain cast: fernando tejero (master of ceremonies) [ a group of men and women in present - day madrid who would like to commit suicide for various reasons come across a copy of stevenson' s
suicide club
and decide to imitate it. but they find it is more difficult than they thought. 104 mins. ]
a man joins a secret club for those who are seeking to end their lives, only to rediscover his will to live upon meeting the club' s only female member .
one of the members of a suicide club learns he has inherited some money, but only after he drew the fatal lot and is expected to kill himself .
kyoto finally got it. saya was becoming the new mitsuko, she is now the leader of the suicide club. one member of saya' s club found kyoto with takeuchi, and reported it to saya. saya thought that kyoto had betrayed her and the following day, it was reported that takeuchi had committed suicide as well .
suicide club has been described as ‘muddled’ and sono criticised for not making his satire of pop culture and denunciation of the media clear enough. but the ambiguity of the film is precisely what makes it interesting. the suicide club is an elusive phenomenon that cannot be attributed to any specific group of people with any certainty. it is a diffuse idea that pervades the whole of society and is not controlled by any one person or group. it’s this idea that makes the film so powerful and disturbing. the suicide club remains very abstract and impossible to pin down to any material reality or evidence. the website that seems to count the suicides before they happen is only a collection of coloured dots on a screen. the name of the pop band dessart is spelt differently in roman characters throughout the film: ‘desert’, ‘dessert’, etc. the police officers are unsure whether the phenomenon they are investigating is accident, suicide or murder. and when a new website appears with the aim of fighting the suicide club, it consists only of a revolving white circle: the counter - suicide club can be nothing but another abstract geometric pattern to combat the indefinable, insubstantial threat. the intangible nature of the suicide club is at the heart of the film, and it is therefore logical that there should be no final resolution .
[ 1932
the suicide club
( universal) a film planned for bella lugosi and boris karloff in 1932 and mentioned again in 1933 before being abandoned (gary don rhodes, lugosi (mcfarland, 1997), p. 218). listed by s as an actual film ]
what' s great about japanese horror, is that no matter what the films they will scare you blind. now with suicide club, they take a whole new concept of what we' re afraid of the most and they create something that horrifyingly effective. a very original film compared to all the new reimagining' s of classic horror films, suicide club is an original scare fest, and it genuinely scares you and there' s plenty of great tense moments to be had within the film. a must watch. suicide club is a harrowing nightmare of a film, a truly terrific concept for its plot with a decent cast make this a terrific little known gem in asian horror. if you love these types of horror flicks, then give this one a shot, suicide club is an intense film from start to finish, one that will keep you interested from beginning to end. this is an entertaining film and one that should appeal to fans of this genre of horror. a fine low budget film, suicide club is a film that has an interesting idea for a film, and the directors clearly have an idea what makes an effective horror film by conveying a new type of fear on their audience. this film is disturbing and chilling, and this is one film that will surely appeal to genre fans. director sion sono is a good director and he has crafted a memorable that will be hard to forget long after you' ve seen it. a film definitely worth your time, one that has a very chilling concept and is hard to forget .
the only way to get into this exclusive club is to play it very, very cool .
the original form of suicide circle is a novel from 2002, jisatsu saakuru: kanzenban (suicide circle: the complete edition) written by sion sono .
the santa monica suicide club is a crime novel set in what raymond chandler used to refer to as bay city – what he meant, of course, was santa monica .
1973 wide world of mystery: the suicide club (glenn) director: bill glenn production: abc cast: peter haskell (florizel), margot kidder (young woman), joseph wiseman (club president) [ adapatation in a tv drama series; 73 mins. ]
cure (kyua, dir. kiyoshi kurosawa, 110 mins, 1997, japanese) suicide club (jisatsu sakuru, dir. sion sino, 99 mins, 2002, japanese )
regrettably, the film' s place - setting opening lays the scene for a different, more exciting film that never really unfolds .
usually, the film names are not revealed until the final time of screening so as to maintain a level of curiosity in trainees. however, this is not mandatory and the film names can be revealed beforehand; trainees may then choose to watch these films themselves before the club and re - watch it during the club screening in a group, and actively partake in the discussions giving insights into different aspects of the film .
attempts to take on suicide without so much as a token mention of the word “depression” .
suicide circle is a... . superb film! is it easy to understand? definitely not! but i think it was designed that way on purpose .
you clearly dont know sion sono very well. a lot of his movies do this kind of mixing of diferent tones and styles. its a truly unique individual, and suicide club is a great movie .
this film ultimately demands the audience to reconsider preconceived notions about suicide and question what it actually meant to truly know yourself, offering the rather skewed idea that death allows you to stay grounded and rooted with you and everyone around you. “suicide club” also provokes you to consider the role of masses when it comes to your own ideals and personal feelings towards death and its elusive nature .
the suicide squad reshoots were first ordered following the incredibly positive response to the trailer, featuring queen’s bohemian rhapsody, that reportedly wasn’t really that representative of the final film .
noriko' s dinner table (noriko no shokutaku) is japanese director sion sono' s prequel / sequel to his cult hit suicide club. noriko' s dinner table opens in select us theatres beginning june 2007. urltoken
2000 robert louis stevenson' s the suicide club / the game of death director: rachel samuels production: roger corman / new concorde cast: david morrissey (henry joyce = florizel), neil stuke (capt. may = geraldine), paul bettany (shaw = young man), jonathan pryce (mr. bourne = club president), catherine siggins (sarah wolverton, female club - member) screenplay: lev l. spiro [ retains the basic elements of s' s story with added elements including a female member of the club, as in trouble for two (1936); generally judged a disappointing film despite production by roger corman; 89 mins. ]
a woman traumatized by her brother' s suicide is inducted into a world of games involving murder .
london 1899 - devastated by the loss of his beloved wife, captain henry joyce joins the highly secretive suicide club, a place where one can be ushered into eternity quietly, and without scandal. this highly secret society caters to an elite, decadent group of aristocrats. it is run by mr. bourne, who provides his clientèle with whatever last vices they desire. membership in the suicide club is an irrevocable contract with only one exit clause - death. however, captain joyce begins to regret his decision after he meets sarah wolverton, the club' s only female member .
fifty - four japanese schoolgirls leap en masse into the path of an oncoming subway train. this is just one of the indelible images from sion sono’s 2001 film suicide club. sono has since proved himself one of the most daring filmmakers today, exemplifying the japanese concept of “ero guro nansensu” (erotic grotesque nonsense) .
large ham: genesis and his gang. also the four women who hang themselves during the suicide montage .
suicide circle (2001) is part of a trilogy. the second part, a prequel, is noriko' s dinner table (2006). the third film was never been made .
1970 el club de los suicidas director: rogelio a. gonzález cast: enrique guzmán [ contemporary setting for rls' s story ]
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locked in her flat for several years, a reclusive young woman stumbles upon a mysterious web community. according to an urban myth, the suicide club grants death to those wishing for it. unless these
cyber suicides
are actually murders .
i would love to read this, but i haven' t seen the cure yet and don' t want to spoil anything for myself. pretty anxious to read any analysis of suicide club, though, what a bizarre ride that movie was .
1909 the suicide club director: d. w. griffith production: american mutoscope and biograph co. cast: herbert yost (the chosen one) screenplay: frank e. woods [ no prints are known to exist, n; 4 mins. ]
offscreen: you also wrote the music for the film. do you play an instrument ?
wahl of, lefkowits jy. impact of a television film on attitudes toward mental illness .
1914 the suicide club (elvey) director: maurice elvey production: british & colonial kinematograph co. cast: montagu love (florizel), elizabeth risdon, fred groves, m. gray murray [
no prints are known to exist
, n ]
tuesday, news broke that suicide squad director david ayer will stay in the dc film universe with an all - female film called gotham city sirens, which will star margot robbie as harley quinn. but buried beneath that news is the potential of two other films based on this summer’s dc team up .
according to the hollywood reporter, in addition to gotham city sirens, dc and warner bros. are working on a suicide squad sequel and a spinoff featuring will smith’s deadshot. that’s three films that will directly follow up on suicide squad .
it honestly feels like suicide club is playing a game with its viewer. amidst (seemingly) randomly picked up and abandoned plotlines, unexplained plotholes, and general restraint from even quietly uttering its own point, it' s easy to dismiss this movie as a trashy gore - fest. but you shouldn' t! while the theme of modern - day alienation through internet and mass media isn' t exactly new, suicide club confronts it in a way that will intrigue at least some people: a mysterious website that displays dots representing suicides; a j - pop band of 10 - 12 year old girls singing saccharine songs and dropping ominous lines like
i need to hear from you right now or i' ll die
; and a gang of kidnappers calling themselves
suicide club
who decide…
sion sono: well, the starting point was that i want to make a poetic, artistic type of film. i wanted to use film as the tool with which to express myself to the audience, and so i started to change the style of my film to suit this .
’s staff and readers to share their thoughts, observations, and opinions on film and tv .
suicide club is a japanese 2001 horror thriller that makes you as an audience bring a lot of theories, with a story that is a mix of bloods and gore fest and detective crime thriller, and with a cute pop group singing songs that are not what they seems .
if one was to ever question how amazing suicide club is, look no further than the first few minutes to get your answer. in it' s opening, a line of 54 japanese school girls join hands and jump to their death in front of a speeding train .
sion sono has always been a master at shock films, inciting gruesome reactions to his love affair with gore and lakes of blood. his films are perhaps the most outlandish experiences i' ve had, from four hour masterpieces about upskirt photography to violent cinema parodies about the yakuza, there really isn' t much that he hasn' t already tackled. suicide club is a more intriguing entry in his filmography, with a plot completely shrouded in a tantalizing mystery that is just waiting to be unraveled. no sono film is complete without its outlandish and innovative death scenes, and suicide club naturally is about as fascinating in its showcases of demise as they can…
the last time we discussed dersu uzala at the film club was in march 2009, with the introductory post and its discussion found here and the other discussions accessible through the dersu uzala tag. you can also find much more about dersu uzala at urltoken .
after 2016’s suicide squad took home more than $ 745 million usd at the box office last year, warner bros. and dc comics are reportedly working on a spin - off film that showcases the joker and harley quinn as bitter rivals instead of lovers. according to reports, the film is set to take place alongside the suicide squad sequel as well as the all - female gotham city sirens following the stories of catwoman, poison ivy and quinn .
a splatterfest with frighteningly cheerful deaths. people, including but not limited to japanese school girls, who are brainwashed by teen pop and internet forums start committing mass suicides. the fact that a horror film like suicide club was made in the early 21st century comes off as not surprising at all considering how at that time the world is charging full speed into the electronic information age .
book ends: footage from a fictional pop group named
dessart
opens and closes the film .
: the movie jumps headfirst into this territory towards the end. the penultimate scene of the film is
the american mutoscope & biograph company bought the rights to this story back in 1908. the company plans in the near future to do a
feature
film remake of this 1909 unusual short film .
by the end of the film, the only thing that seems clear is that the suicide club has introduced chaos and disorder into society. the fact that there is no rational or criminal explanation for the suicides upsets and unsettles assumptions about the nature, stability and functioning of society. in many suicidal fictions, the impulse for self - destruction stems from a loss of meaning, a disillusion with the values offered by society, and corresponds to a distrust for language (see the various spellings of ‘dessart’), seen as a vehicle for the authorities that govern that society, and therefore perceived as corrupt. so while for one person to decide that life is meaningless is an act of nihilism that may cause some disruption to the social fabric, when a group of people decides to form a society devoted to self - destruction, it becomes an all - out attack on the values of society at large, almost an act of existential terrorism. this connection between organised self - destruction and the threat to social order is an idea that runs through fictional depictions of suicide clubs, from robert louis stevenson’s 1882 short story ‘the suicide club’ to sono’s film, via quasi - suicide clubs such as fight club (1999). and yet, despite their fascinating implications and subversive potential, suicide clubs remain a surprisingly rare kind of secret society in cinema, with sono’s film one of the most formidable, labyrinthine and provocative examples .
the a. v. club: thanks for taking the time to talk today. let’s discuss lights out and how it deals with the subject of depression .
driven to suicide: the main premise of the film is that people all across japan are committing suicide at an alarming rate and is deliberately gruesome ways to get attention. as all but two of the hundreds of deaths in this movie are suicides. the message of the film seems to be getting the authorities and public to open their eyes to the country' s high rate of teenage suicides, even if it is disturbingly played for laughs half of the time .
shooting the film began in may 1974 on location in siberia, and lasted for almost a year under demanding conditions. dersu uzala premiered in japan on august 2, 1975 and did relatively well at the domestic box office, although the critical reception in japan was muted. abroad the film was better received, winning both the golden prize at the moscow international film festival and an academy award for best foreign language film .
offscreen: wow, that’s very interesting! what about kenji fukasaku, for example black rose mansion which features a transsexual man playing the part of a woman, who is always performing. it has a lot of theatricality, like your film. the circus sequences in your film reminded me a bit of this film .
an excellent foreign film. strange though, with some upsetting imagery. not for the faint of heart .
it boggles my mind somewhat that this is the movie of his that won the best foreign film oscar .
a while back, i watched a rather intriguing japanese horror film called “suicide club”. the plot centers around an impending wave of mass suicides that threaten japanese society, creating a sense of mystery and source of panic for authorities who desperately struggle to discover the roots behind these seemingly unmotivated deaths. the film was enjoyable because of how crazy weird it is, with some obscure, almost nonsensical ideas presented without any coherent explanation. as such, the film provides a perfect opportunity for me to go on a philosophical rant to make sense out of ideas that wouldn’t make sense otherwise. before i continue, i would like to disclaim that i do not share nor advocate some of the controversial themes explored by the film, and rather aim to present, as honestly as i can, my interpretation of what the film is trying to convey .
kiyoshi kurosawa’s cure and sion sino’s suicide club are successors of that very tradition. both films disguise themselves as straightforward and typical mysteries that both hinge on a “hook” to draw the viewer in. in cure, there have been a spate of random killings, where the victim is slashes across the neck in an “x” pattern. the perpetrator is always found nearby, and is always different. although the culprits confess to the murder, they are unable to explain adequately their motives for the brutal, bizarre murders. sino’s suicide club has a similar strange premise: gangs of schoolchildren, a lot of them girls, take to committing mass suicide. in the opening scene, close to 50 schoolgirls hold hands and leap in front of a speeding bullet train, seemingly for no apparent reason. what follows is an investigation into this phenomenon as more and more teenagers take to committing mass suicide .
sounds just a tiny bit like heathers, that old christian slater vehicle. high school students kill their rivals and make it look like suicide. the thing is, since all the popular kids are supposedly taking their own life it becomes a trend, the cool thing to do. while heathers is obviously satire, suicide club is something much darker i feel. you must be a riot when there are balloons and needles involved. homemade anticipation .
“ suicide squad, ” directed by david ayer and produced by charles roven and richard suckle, will begin shooting next april in toronto .
both films end on inconclusive notes, there is no neat wrapping up of the plot. there are plot holes, loops and subplots that are wholly abandoned, more in the case of suicide club than cure. while cure might be a technically and philosophically superior film, suicide club holds its own, despite often being dismissed as mindless gore - fest. i am certain that these films will make much more sense to a japanese, for they seem to tackle very distinctly japanese topics. it would be a sin to compare these films to the work of ozu, for ozu is in a class of his own, and there will never be another like ozu, but in terms to japan - ness, they appear similar .
1964 curse of the stone hand director: jerry warren, using footage from carlos hugo christensen (
suicide club
sequences), carlos schlieper (
house of gloom
sequences) production: adp pictures inc. / chile films s. a. cast: carlos cores, guillermo battaglia screenplay: jerry warren [
patchwork film
by inferior b - movie horror - film producer jerry warren; the
suicide club
segment consists of about 35 minutes lifted from the
brilliantly atmospheric
la dama de la muerte (1946, see above) filled out with
nonsense hollywood - filmed sequences
starring john carradine and katherine victor (the
house of gloom
sequences are from schlieper' s la casa esta vacia); information kindly supplied by jean - claude michel; see will laughlin' s braineater horror - movie site ]
awesome, i fucking was nearly blown away by suicide club when i watched it not all that long ago. it' s so surreal and creepy, it makes my skin crawl, but at the same time, it makes me smile at certain points. there are some scenes that are purely amazing in how they unfold and you are never remotely sure as to where the film may go. when i watched it, i hadn' t watched an asian horror film in a while with the cluster fuck of asian horror from a few years back. i thought suicide club would be just another seen it all before horror film, but boy was i wrong. there is so much depth and thought in this film, but there is so much left open, that it leaves one to only ponder what it all means. i did a review of it sometime back, and looking at it now, you commented on it. i' ll take credit for you watching and loving the movie. you' re welcome. great review, by the way .
kick the dog: a villain in the film, genesis, almost literally does this with a guinea pig .
2014 (14th) marrakech international film festival - dec. 5 - 13, 2014 - tribute to japanese cinema
if it seems like literally everyone from the breakfast club has worked on psych at some point or another, it’s because everyone has - - emilio estevez being the only exception .
ordinary high school student: most students are just ordinary teenagers with not much to set them apart from others. they still commit mass suicide .
honestly, this all kind of makes sense, though. suicide squad may have been savaged by critics, but it did very well financially. and even critics of the film admitted that smith and robbie were highlights. plus, they’re massive movie stars. you don’t cast them for one film, as popular comic book characters, and then put them on the shelf .
warner bros. & dc are reportedly working on a' harley quinn vs. the joker' spin - off film
i do believe that the film requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but i' m okay with that .
suicide is a difficult topic to tackle without being sensationalist or reductive. but 13 reasons why manages to fall into both of these categories at once .
i loved the opening scenes of the film, with all the school girls jumping to their deaths. the movie was insane, but so confusing! as you mention in your review, its not easy to completely understand what this film is about, but like a good david lynch film, the experience is more important then
getting
the movie .
every time i watch suicide club i love it more. it can be hard to grasp the first time, but if you watch closely, this is a gorgeous film - definitely a favorite of mine now. it' s not a good movie if you' re in a specific mood - there are elements of b movie gore, touching moments, horror, and social commentary. stick with it and you might find it really gets to you .
since its inception in 1997. totaro received his phd in film & television from the university of warwick (uk), is a part - time professor in film studies at concordia university (montreal, canada) and a longstanding member of
sono is particularly interested in secret societies and cults, which is partly to do with the fact that he joined a cult when he was younger and later became a member of a terrorist group (as he explains in the 3am interview). his early experiences inspired his film love exposure (2008), which features the catholic church as well as a sinister religious cult. in fact, the suicide club could almost be a sect: the children and presumed members ask questions such as ‘are you connected with yourself? ’ and pronounce nebulous statements that would not be out of place in a new age cult. talking about love exposure in the japan times, sono explained: ‘i like exploring borderlines. in this film, it’s the borderlines between perversion and normality, the catholic church and cults. ’ that statement can be applied to suicide club too. sono does not simply use a religious cult as the perverted contrast to the normality of the catholic church, but the cult serves also to highlight the perversions in what we perceive as the norm. in the same way, the possibility of the existence of a secret society called the suicide club reveals the fault lines of the supposedly ‘normal’ society, notably the seemingly unbridgeable divide between youth and adults .
1936 trouble for two / the suicide club (ruben) director: j. walter ruben production: mgm cast: robert montgomery (prince florizel), rosalind russell (miss vandeleur / princess brenda), frank morgan (colonel geraldine), reginald owen (president of club), louis hayward (young man with cream tarts) screenplay: edward e. paramore jr. , manuel seff photography: charles g. clarke [ loosely based on
cream tarts
and
hansom cab
episodes, adds love interest for prince florizel, a female member of the club who is his chosen assassin ;
hollywood hokum... arrant nonsense... parade of clichés
, n; 80 mins. ]
offscreen: somebody once said that ero - guro is half beautiful and half grotesque, so i assume masumi would be the beautiful aspect of the film? in other words, the film is supposed to be very beautiful but also very horrible .
i feel as though the dc comics franchise may have publicly performed its suicide with this film. what began with a few interesting characters, dragged on into a 40 minute exposition of the film' s universe and a census of the overpopulated neighborhood. then the big baddie is revealed - - and it makes no sense. the wheels fell off the wagon from there. dreadful. absolutely dreadful .
in the dark, dull shadow cast by zack snyder’s batman v superman – news of suicide squad perhaps aiming for something a little different sounds incredibly promising .
saya koto was an ordinary teenage girl until she joined a certain club, as her best friend, kyoto, had narrated. saya started acting pretty strange, and worshiped the club' s leader and founder, mitsuko, even going to the point to sell her body to give money to mitsuko. she hides this by telling kyoto that she needs money because her father is sick .
when mitsuko died on the train jump, saya lost her happiness, and she started to gain many more admirers, considering she survived the mass suicide. when a girl was seen picking on saya, it was reported that the very next day the girl allegedly committed suicide, but many speculate she was murdered .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
genesis is the leader of his group which seems to be a suicide cult, but he rather is a poser than having any involvement in the mass suicides .
although i have watched dersu a couple of times from the artificial eye dvd, for some reason i still mentally associate the film with a very poor quality cropped vhs copy that i had in the 90s. it didn’t do the film justice at all .
domino g. impact of the film, “one flew over the cuckoo' s nest, ” on attitudes towards mental illness .
as for dessart, the innocuous - looking pop band seems to hide clues in their lyrics and promotional posters that would appear to point to some sort of cult of death led by children. however, there is no resolution, no explanation of any kind, and the suggestion of this unlikely conspiracy is left open to interpretation at the end. more important than knowing whether the suicide club is really a secret society of children is the total separation and incomprehension between young people and adults that its possible existence reveals. whatever it is that may lead young people to commit suicide, the film suggests that the adults will always be inherently unable to comprehend it .
as suicide club progresses, the plot becomes increasingly murkier. more and more levels are added, to the point of distraction. suicide club is not as polished as cure, it is rough and often loses its point. but the central theme, that of dislocation, makes itself felt as well. there is a strange boy who often calls the detectives, a boy with a cough that becomes more and more irritating as he talks. this is probably deliberate, the director wishes for us to feel irritation. it is meant to dislodge us, just like the boy is dislodging teenagers from their own lives. he too asks a question, “are you connected to yourself? ” to the detectives he poses this question, “i know you are connected to your family, to your children, to your wife, but are you connected to yourself? ” once again, the question becomes one of identity. while cure seems to blame society, in suicide club, it is pop culture and television that seems to be at fault. there are many subplots that don’t serve much purpose, except distraction, but the theme of connection is threaded into each of them. the detectives find a long roll of skin at the scene of the suicides, the roll composed of squares of skin from different people, most of them the ones who just died. in death, this is their connection to each other. even as they leap off buildings and in front of trains, the teenagers hold hands, it is an act of a group, not an individual. in this way, suicide club is often at odds with cure. while cure desires an individual, suicide club wishes for a group identity, a connection to each other that is often lost in the mindless drone of the television and the mass - marketed media .
offscreen: i’m curious because yesterday when you introduced the film you said the japanese do not like this film. i wonder if it is because of the western aspects to the film, especially thematically in terms of the psychology. and with some of the settings, like the circus, there is a lot we can relate to as westerners. is it perhaps too western for japanese audiences ?
i am an idiot for avoiding this for so long. i' ve always (incorrectly) seen sion sono as some kind of second rate, less interesting takashi miike. he' s not. he' s definitely not. suicide club is a fascinating, disgusting, wild piece of cinema and a sad reminder of how pathetic and boring japanese films are now compared to the incredible highs of the early 2000s. this was nothing like i expected it to be. though it starts with lots of goofy squelching sounds and a terrible exploding cgi head, suicide club quickly makes it clear that it will be an unpredictable, totally engaging mystery filled with angry satire and no easy answers. some may find its messy structure and tonal jumps difficult…
unflinching, but tender and often humorous, the suicide club is an examination of the last taboo in our society – as well as our deep human desire to connect. it explores why we feel the need to extinguish our lives, how we can pull back from the edge, and how – by saving ourselves – we can sometimes also save the people we love .
also, thank you, vili and ugetsu, for the information on where to find out more about the making of this film .
following the disappointing commercial reception of the 1970 dodesukaden, kurosawa was at the low point in his career. the japanese film industry was quickly shrinking, and unable to find funding for new projects while also suffering from poor health, kurosawa attempted suicide on december 22, 1971. the attempt was unsuccessful .
when presented with scenes of scores of teenagers gleefully holding hands and jumping to their deaths in enthusiastic orgies of suicide, i was not disappointed. dismembered body parts were numerous…
having promised a few years ago to revive his decades - old tradition of class, low - budget (and usually period) dramas, roger corman makes good on that pledge with the satisfying, if awkwardly titled, “robert louis stevenson’s the suicide club. ” pic is a throwback to corman cinema a la edgar allen poe as well as a forward - looking model [ … ]
i would go as far as to suggest that more than any other kurosawa film, dersu uzala is first and foremost intended as a visual and aural experience. early on in the film dersu scolds the russian soldiers for watching but not seeing, and i think that we as an audience also easily fall into the same trap, criticising the film for its rather uncomplicated plot and somewhat loose structure while not realising that these are, ultimately, secondary to the film’s core intention, which is to present us with the world as dersu experiences it .
i would go as far as to suggest that more than any other kurosawa film, dersu uzala is first and foremost intended as a visual and aural experience. early on in the film dersu scolds the russian soldiers for watching but not seeing, and i think that we as an audience also easily fall into the same trap, criticising the film for its rather uncomplicated plot and somewhat loose structure while not realising that these are, ultimately, secondary to the film’s core intention, which is to present us with the world as dersu experiences it… .
what' s most chilling about suicide club? the anticipation and the question of whether or not someone is actually going to do it. i used to be terrified of loaded guns in movies being pointed at someone' s head. that idea of not knowing just when something is going to explode is extremely nerve wracking, suicide club takes those anxieties and doubles them. introducing you to character' s, only to see them take their lives for no apparent reason other than the fact that they finally figured something out that you didn' t. blood? guts? gross? yes. but i wouldn' t call it the driving force behind the film. and as a matter of fact i was tickled pink at the sight of some technicolor like, red as paint blood during one very wonderful scene involving a knife and some fingers. sure there are moments of fleeting nausea - - - human skin cinnamon roll anyone ?
the cinepocalypse film festival descended once more upon chicago’s music box theatre this past week, providing seven straight days of movie madness, ranging from grisly horror to gonzo action to outrageous camp. while we weren’t able to see every film that screened during the festival—even die - hard genre fans…
the film opens up with 50 high school girls gleefully committing suicide by joining hands and jumping off a platform in front of an oncoming train. the score is playful and the blood - splatter is exaggerated to comedic effect, but everyone plays it straight. director sion sono doesn' t ease you into anything here .
to celebrate the 30th anniversary of john hughes’ 1985 classic, the breakfast club, stars ringwald and ally sheedy attended a special screening at sxsw (a digitally remastered version of the film will also be released in select theaters from march 26 - 31). which seems like the perfect opportunity to find out what our favorite detention - goers look like three decades later :
clearly, much of the film was designed as an audiovisual spectacle. throughout the film, we are shown shots of the siberian landscape in its various shapes and colours, enhanced by a soundtrack carefully woven from the sounds of animals, fire, water, wind and other natural elements .
i have not read the manga, but i do know that the film has a prequel ,
noriko' s dinner table
that delves more into why the events unfold as they do in the film. i haven' t seen it yet, but it is streaming on netflix .
by the time the closing credits rolled on sion sono' s apparent' cult classic' suicide club, i was well and truly frustrated by my attempt to decode and draw some sense of satisfaction from it, and despite being a fan of sono' s work thus far (i have seen cold fish, love exposure and why don' t you play in hell ?), something was amiss here .
i accidently came across this movie after watching the movie based on the uzumaki manga. i was absolutely amazed by it, always trying to guess / work things out and then something more crazy happened which blew all my ideas out of the water and got me guessing again. after i watched the uzumaki movie i realised that there was a lot i wouldn' t have understood if i hadn' t read the manga befotrehand, which got me to thinking if it was the same for suicide club, so i went for a search, low and behold, there' s a manga for suicide club, which also explains a lot to the story, it' s so deep with so many twists, i enjoyed reading it so much. also it' s fairly popular so you can easily find scanlations of it online ^ _ ^
when tim burton made his first batman film in 1989, he cast one of hollywood’s biggest and most dependable stars in the role of batman’s greatest enemy. jack nicholson, already a two - time academy award winner (he’d later collect a third trophy in the 1990s), was paid a king’s ransom for the role (his cut of the film’s profits ran to an estimated $ 50 million) and received top billing above the movie’s ostensible lead michael keaton. since then, the joker has remained the most prestigious comic - book movie role, winning heath ledger a posthumous oscar for 2008’s the dark knight; jared leto was cast in the role in suicide squad not long after his oscar win for dallas buyers club .
sometimes they are like the seed sown on stony ground. the suicide club is andrew williams’s fourth novel, and it removes any doubts. it establishes him as an unusually accomplished craftsman, a master of the intelligent historical spy thriller. his research is thorough and has been absorbed; it never obtrudes. his imagination works in harmony with his powers of observation. his plotting is intricate and coherent. the narrative drives compellingly along .
spoilers ahead. the big question posed by the whole movie is
are you connected to yourself
is the only real connection between your soul and yourself is that of your body, then what is the point really? the people commiting suicide in the film are severing that chain, thus forcing their spirit and their self to be whole .
i saw this one awhile back - i also had the same reaction. after watching the film, i also wanted to know
why .
it' s a very intriguing and interesting film. though, i guess it will always remain a mystery to me. nice post, thanks for sharing !
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
the suicide scene itself is almost unbearably difficult to watch. to its credit, it contains no euphemistic photo montages or sad indie ballads, but the realism of the scene feels uncomfortably close to a how - to guide to suicide. it teeters dangerously on the edge of emotional torture porn, a territory already frequented at an alarming rate by the very teenagers that the show is desperate to help. the show is right to be trying to provide teenagers with a lesson in compassion and sensitivity, but watching hannah baker cut her wrists in high definition isn’t doing anything for youth suicide prevention .
offscreen: o yes, i’m not saying that, but the sensors in north america look for these things and don’t make a distinction between a sophisticated film that is dealing with it as a subject and a pornographic film. that is why i am surprised that a distributor has picked it up, but that is great. along with that we have had a lot of american remakes of j - horror, but i don’t think there has been a remake of an ero - guro film, and that is probably because it would be too problematic, with the ero - guro mix of sex with violence. i think in a way that is a good thing. it is a way for you to protect your film, because you know they won’t ever remake your film .
in early 1973, the soviet film studio mosfilm approached kurosawa asking if he would be interested in working on a new project with them. kurosawa agreed to the idea and proposed to film an adaptation of russian explorer vladimir arsenyev’s autobiographical work dersu uzala, a book kurosawa had been considering for a film from as early as the 1930s. in the book, arsenyev narrates his experiences with the titular siberian hunter who acted as his guide for several expeditions to the russian far east .
in tokyo, 54 schoolgirls leap in front of a subway train committing suicide. shortly after, at a hospital, two nurses kill themselves by jumping out of a window. at both locations rolls of flesh are found, with the missing skin matching removed flesh on corpses. three detectives are notified by a hacker named kiyoko of a link between the suicides and a website that ties the mystery to an internet suicide cult around a guy named
genesis
. within the next days, the suicide epidemic spreads over japan and many more deaths occur. will the police be able stop this mysterious epidemic ?
suicide squad isn' t as fun of a ride as guardians of the galaxy. it could have been, with more performances like jared leto' s and margot robbie' s... .
follows a group of 12 high school students as they piece together a story as it is described on a series of cassette tapes left for them their classmate hannah baker, who has died by suicide .
offscreen: another way of looking at it, because the film has a story within a story structure, with the masumi character (taeko) as the writer of the story, is that we are seeing her imagination. it could also be a film about the creative process, something like barton fink for example. or a little bit like 8 ½ where you see the creative process of a director who we see trying to make a film. in this film we have a writer who we learn is trying to write a story, and we are seeing the story which we think is fiction but then it becomes metafiction, a fiction inside of a fiction. we can never see inside the artist’s mind but the film is an idea of what it would be like inside an artist’s mind.
suicide club , known in japan as suicide circle ( 自殺サークル jisatsu sākuru ) is a 2001 japanese independent horror film written and directed by sion sono . the film explores a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior . suicide club gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its controversial subject matter and gory presentation . it has developed a significant cult following , and won the jury prize for " most ground-breaking film " at the fantasia film festival . 
suicide club, known in japan as suicide circle (自殺サークル jisatsu sākuru) is a 2001 japanese independent horror film written and directed by sion sono. the film explores a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior. suicide club gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its controversial subject matter and gory presentation. it has developed a significant cult following, and won the jury prize for " most ground-breaking film " at the fantasia film festival.
suicide club, known in japan as suicide circle (自殺サークル jisatsu sākuru) is a 2001 japanese independent horror film written and directed by sion sono. the film explores a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior. suicide club gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its controversial subject matter and gory presentation. it has developed a significant cult following, and won the jury prize for " most ground-breaking film " at the fantasia film festival.