Change Your Image
Doxology
Reviews
Jisatsu sâkuru (2001)
A filmmaker lost in his own deranged mind
Suicide Club seems to set out with a noble goal -- to make plain the futility of taking one's life.
In hard-edged, often shocking fashion, the film builds an intriguing and disturbing mystery through the first two thirds of the film as Sono weaves together horrifying and unexplainable events into a nihilistic conspiracy.
(Potential minor spoiler alert -- I describe a few shock scenes next)
And then, bit by bit, the film starts to lose itself in its own perverse thrills as a housewife slowly, inexplicably cuts off her fingers in little slices (in an extended macro shot). This pattern culminates in a head-scratching, stomach-churning scene introducing a nihilist "boss": In a private bowling alley filled with writing bags of animals, the glam-rocker-dressed boss walks out and savagely crushes several bagged-puppies and kittens with his foot, then commissions a rape to occur in a larger bag, all as two teenage girls (held prisoner) watch in mortal terror. He then breaks out a *guitar*, and he and his gangsters BREAK INTO SONG. The song culminates with the stabbing of the rape victim.
Lovely, eh? I was almost ready to even accept this scene as a setup for the film's ultimate resolution -- but it never came, leaving this perversion worthless in telling Sono's message.
This is where Suicide Club parts ways with far superior "shock-with-meaning" Japanese cinema such as Battle Royale -- in BR, the message is never lost in the horror; each scene reinforces the questions the director wants the audience to consider. In Suicide Club, the audience is simply asked too much, and Sono delivers too little, with nothing to justify his hideous indulgences.
Kumo no mukô, yakusoku no basho (2004)
Lovely if a bit convoluted
Read the title a couple of times.
It's lyrical, evocative, even elegiac, and yet could have been expressed in fewer words.
Such is this film.
Formally, it's a pure joy to behold. From sweeping countryside panoramas and old, weatherbeaten structures that somehow plumb deep-seated sparks of nostalgia, to sweetly-embellished details like a softly rattling electric fan, Shinkai creates a vibrant, human environment. The soundtrack is equally enveloping, with heart-melting violin and piano work.
Beyond this is quite a decent film, with believable characters in often hard-to-fathom situations. The boyhood friendship of the two male protagonists is very real -- but their ability to engineer, fabricate, and pilot a sophisticated aircraft at age 15 is purely the stuff of anime fantasy.
And yet, everything, no matter how incredible or convoluted, is wrapped in these Shinkai layers of lyricism and beauty. Through a very sensitive and even transcendent treatment, scene after scene is made to appear pivotal, even if it's not.
And thus we have a film that is almost cloying in its presentation -- it's not layered with pure sugar; most of the time it feels genuine, even if it's becoming self-indulgent. But indulge it does, because the director knows how to indulge gracefully.
Normally style over substance kills substance. In "Place," it gently infuses it with some sort of warm, nourishing milk.