​FILM GUTTER: SUICIDE CLUB (2001)

Dir. Sion Sono, Japan, 99 mins

Japan never seems to fail you for something interesting where it comes to horror cinema – sure, there’s plenty of good and bad within that, but very rarely do I come away thinking I’ve seen nothing noteworthy, or at the least nothing will stick with me. Even the worst of the wave of splatter cinema from the country produced memorable images if little else…

Which brings us to Suicide Club, which is probably the film I’ve been meaning to get around to the longest of all the films on the long, long ‘to watch’ list. I’ve been aware of this one for the better part of a decade, so it’s almost inexplicable it should have taken this long to actually put this one on. Sion Sono’s 2001 film certainly has a cult reputation, so let’s find out if that’s warranted.

Suicide Club follows a number of threads, but centres on a trio of police officers who are brought in after the event of a truly unforgettable opening scene, where a large group of schoolchildren meet at a train station, link hands, count to three and fling themselves in front of a train. It’s an iconic moment, and deservedly so – as a viewer it’s an absolute slap in the face to pay attention to what is going on. When officers Kuroda, Shibusawa and Murata come to investigate initially, they’re not even sure a crime has been committed at all – but as reports of more and more young people committing suicide come in, and a strange website seems to be predicting the number of deaths, they come to realise there’s much more to the spate of suicides than they could have imagined. Alongside that runs the story of a young hacker who finds herself inextricably caught up in this strange case, although it’s not immediately apparently which side of the law she is on as pertains to the growing batch of deaths…

For me, Suicide Club is a movie that sets out to say something about the disconnect between the younger generation and the older generation, and in that way packs even more of a wallop today – in a world where kids and teenagers can seemingly live an entirely second life online, the film is perhaps even more prescient today than it was on its release. It speaks to fads and trends, but with such darkness and such bleakness that it never becomes vapid, remaining compelling from start to finish. It never seeks to demean or lessen the young characters within it, nor criticize their elders, making it an even more complex film morally and emotionally.

Interestingly, it’s also a movie that offers up very few simple answers – there are plenty of hints and intimations, but a large chunk is left up to the viewer, something that I personally consider to be a strength of the movie. The performances from all the leads are very strong, and the plotline keeps you guessing all the way through. You could potentially take numerous different things out of it, and the finale only adds to that sense of fascinating ambiguity. Having at last got around to watching this one for a first time, I doubt it’ll take me anywhere near as long to come to a second viewing…

RATING: 9/10. A really fascinating movie, and one that wasn’t what I had expected from the get-go, nor did it ever settle quite long enough on any one thing to be what I expected at any given moment. It’s a shapeshifter of a movie, blending the tautness of a police drama with hints of the otherworldly and a splash of the malaise of teen culture, creating a concoction that looks a little like a lot of things but doesn’t fully resemble anything else. As such, it’s something that I could absolutely understand not appealing to everyone – there’s very little neat and tidy, and if you prefer it that way it sounds as though you might be better off tackling the manga of the same name. With all that said, if you like your films twisty, surprising and often shocking, Suicide Club is a cult you really ought to be joining…