Suicide Club (2002)

I don't watch that many morbid flicks, so it's safe to say that Suicide Club is the most disturbing one I've seen so far.

The film opens in a subway platform where 54 female high school students committed suicide. As the train approaches the platform, the students line up beyond the yellow line, hold hands, count to two and jump to the tracks as the train approaches. For the next hour and a half, tons of people will commit suicide in the same manner.

And for the next hour and a half, you'd wonder what pushes these people to take their own lives, excited and carefree. One minute they're happily chatting with friends, the next they're jumping off a building. Along with the audience, the police wonders if it's murder or just a suicide fad. Over the course of history, there had been suicide cults so it wouldn't be the first time that a group of people decides to commit suicide at the same time. But as a sports bag appears multiple of times in the suicide scene, the police grows suspicious. What's even more intriguing is how inside the sports bag, there are slabs of skin are sewed together.

The movie manages to sustain interest all throughout the movie. At first it's a group suicide, then smaller groups follow. There are instances that an individual would do it. There's no obvious pattern on the suicide victims, no common place, no reason at all why these individuals commit suicide. Then we start to get to know the police officers who are involved in the case. We see how they are affected by the case, how it starts from being just a case to something more personal.

I like how they tell the story, how one scene weaves into another. How questions pile up and you have no choice but to tune in, no matter how gut-wrenching the scenes are becoming. A couple of times, I wanted to stop watching because I didn't think I could handle more bloodbath. But I continued watching because there are enough elements to hold my attention, to make me continue watching.

Then we finally reach the end and I'm just.... WHAT. I do not want to spoil it for you, so I won't go into too much details. I got an answer but it's an answer that I didn't really understand. If a group of kids, asking me if I'm connected to myself, want to push me to commit suicide, they won't succeed. I'd just probably stand there with an incredulous look on my face, asking them what the f-ck are they talking about. Oh, I think I understand it a bit. If your connections to people, to the world, to yourself would remain even after you die, why are you still living? That's the gist of it, right? But I still don't think it's enough to convince people to kill themselves.

Another thing that disturbs me is how nonchalant the suicide victims are before the actual suicide. They act like everything's normal, that they're going to do something ordinary. But you see in the group suicide event, they suddenly align, as if everything's planned. And while they await the exact moment they're going to die, they seem to go in a catatonic stage. It all seems so absurd to me. I just don't feel like the answer we got in the ending is enough to explain why these people commit suicide in that manner. Some things just don't connect.

I also don't understand the group Dessert's involvement in all these! I DON'T KNOOOOOOOW. Their presence from the very start of the movie is already ominous but it still doesn't make sense.

Maybe watching the sequel (Or prequel? It happens before the series of suicides, after all.), Noriko's Dinner Table, would make me understand this movie a bit better. But I don't know if I could go through another ordeal of suicides and philosophical nonsense.

If you're someone who likes disturbing and gross movies, then go and watch Suicide Club. I'm pretty sure it's something you'll appreciate. But if you want something that would make sense, that wouldn't make you go WTF at the end of the movie, stay far, far away from this movie.

That is all. My head hurts just by thinking about it.