FILM REVIEWS - Miscellaneous - http://maxpages.com/aeazine2/ISSUE_11_FILM_REVIEWS

Suicide Club (2002)
Directed by Shion Sono
For Peace Co. Ltd.

One person who saw "Suicide Club" commented on a public forum that Shion Sono wrote and directed an "exploitive trivialization of death and suicide." I believe Sono wanted to base a film on a society that trivializes all kinds of tragedies unless something happens to someone on a personal level. Human beings are continually complacent when it comes to the suffering of others. This fact has often been dealt with through a smattering of role reversal, and people who have personally experienced what others live with always leave with a different perspective on matters of ethnic, religious or social differences. In a way, "Suicide Club" works toward the same purpose, even if its method isn't quite the same.
Japan's most notable contribution to Stateside cinema was 1998's "Ringu", remade into "The Ring" in 2002 by writer Ehren Kruger. This remake, based on Hideo Nakata's direction, had its hand in breathing new life into a genre that was quickly losing steam before 1999 saw "Blair Witch" bring horror to new levels while bringing indie cinema to nationwide attention. Other Japanese directors are showing their hand presenting ideas as inventive as those created by Nakata. The biggest waves have been set in motion by Takashi Miike with 2000's "Audition," Kinji Fukasaku with 2000's "Battle Royale" and Shion Sono with 2002's "Suicide Club," easily a few of the more daring directors from the past decade.
One thing I have noticed about horror movies, especially movies with antagonists christened Freddy, Jason, Chucky, or Michael, is that for all the killing we see there's little blood to speak for. Even cult favorites like "Pieces" and "Zombie" (which I still enjoy today as much as when I first saw them) have always shown less than the amount that would have been expected for those grisly murders). Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was a step in the right direction, however, and Sono's film goes a bit farther toward making up for things, right from an opening sequence that garnered most of the deep controversy that has surrounded "Suicide Club" since it opened everywhere from Asia to the States.
The setting is a subway station somewhere in Japan. A group of high school students, no older than fifteen, appear to be waiting for the next Tokyo-bound train just like all the other commuters gathered there, going about their business. But the complacency this is meant to satirize is on the verge of being shattered to pieces, possibly beyond one's ability to piece back together. As everyone is concerned with their own affairs, no one suspects anything strange about the group of schoolgirls, no older than fifteen, forming a long line near the edge of the platform, joining hands, chanting the children's dare of "one, two, three" and jumping under the oncoming subway as it pulls in, killing themselves instantly.
Sono's purpose in writing "Suicide Club" was to offer a piercing societal satire in a way as complex as society itself. As I did some research on the social structure in Japan I found some literature that suggests Japanese youth are even more alienated by their business-minded society than America's youth are alienated by materialism and social status. If you take this into consideration with the fact that Japan is a small country with one of the world's fastest aging rates, I would imagine the deaths shown in this movie would send far greater shockwaves through Japan than over here. The various points Sono makes while criticizing society in "Suicide Club" are thus driven home with even greater urgency.
"Suicide Club" offers several social satires as Sono tackles copycat crimes, the mass media saturation of pop music, the assimilation of the individual in the masses and when the law fails to bring criminals to justice because it's simply too ill-equipped to catch the criminal in the first place. He does this while projecting a world through the camera lens where everything is dark, and the only light is as cold and foreboding as the sense of something tragic that is about to happen. And tragic things do happen, with visual and aesthetic effects that slap you across the face. Even more frightening to watch is the speed in which each tragedy snowballs until you suspect they will soon reach apocalyptic heights.
Once the carnage from the opening scene registers with the others, shock sets in and lingers through the arrival of the police sent to investigate the mass suicide. After this incident is inevitably reported on radio and in the local papers, the inexplicable suicides increase at an alarming rate. "Copycat" jumping suicides, suicide by self-mutilation, suicide by hanging and suicide by a variety of other methods plague urban Japan, and the police have no explanation as to what is causing the mortality rate to rise. When the news hits it becomes a virtual orgy of media sensationalism, and despite the best efforts of the police to curtail things another group of students, treating it like a game, leap to their deaths.
Before long, Japan explodes in mass suicides that are taking place all over the country. The police don't even know whether they should consider these incidents crimes, and their only key to solving them is an anonymous caller going under the nickname "the Bat" who came across a strange website on the Internet that reports the suicides before the media reports it to the public. All the website shows is a series of dots representing the complete number of suicides. We know the identity of "the Bat" before the police do, but "the Bat" is unwilling to reveal this, presumably under the fear of being found out by the webmasters of that website, but this lets the police know there are people behind this.
Also raising suspicion is a preteen singing group with a hit single climbing the charts in proportion to the increase of suicides. This singing group, a cross between Hanson and the Spice Girls, perform dance-techno-pop so repetitive it's almost intrusive to the extent of overwhelming your consciousness. It's uncertain whether this singing group is directly related to the growing number of deaths without further investigation, notwithstanding feedback from net surfers who saw this movie such as "no wonder they're killing themselves!" And I won't even get into the other link the police come across; it's too horrible to mention; but it does have a key clue that could assist them a long way in solving the mystery.
The movie takes quite a few twists and turns, moving from horror to satire to something utterly surreal, avant-garde and nightmarish as the unseen barrier between the real world and the otherworldly, straining against pressure from the other side, finally shatters into splinters and falls away. The film's final act takes us into territory we never would have expected, even with the clues we were provided with earlier. The "suicide club" that seemingly consisted of copycats is an actual cult, something we realize upon meeting a strange persona who has been described as a cross between David Bowie and Frank N. Furter of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," before heading into even stranger territory.
All this is Sono's vehicle to ask the right sort of questions, such as: is society's way of pacifying the youth the right way to fulfill them while they're still impressionable. Can an individual break away from years of conditioning to find that much-needed connection with him or herself? Sono is not being offensive for the sake of being offensive as much as he's charging society itself with having become one great big suicide club. Besides this, the concept on which he made this movie, of nothing being exactly as it seems, is given a final twist to offer us a message of hope and optimism.
The pitch for this article is by far the most outrageous tall tale told by Glass yet; it's hard to fathom that anyone who was present for the staff meeting would actually believe that 15 year old Ian Restil, or any other computer hacker, would have an agent and be hired by the company whose database he hacked (at the "national hackers' convention," no less). But they swallow it all, and Glass pursues the article. Once the article is published, Penenberg and Fox get curious and begin their own research on the alleged facts Glass divulged in his article. No proof of any kind comes of this research, not even proof of the existence of one Ian Restil. This is when things start to unravel in Glass' career.
Penenberg calls Glass, leaving a voice mail message with him that he would like to have a "companion piece" of the article, as he and Fox are working to expose him. Not only that, but his new editor is demanding some form of contact with Ian Restil. One thing leads to another between these two developments, and all of Glass' efforts to cover himself are stripped away. It's almost amusing to see how increasingly desperate and hysterical Glass becomes as his world starts crashing in on him as he continually tries to divert attention from himself, right up to the point where he loses his job in disrepute. With everything Glass did to try throwing suspicion off his story, it's a wonder he wasn't fined millions and imprisoned forever. Instead, he managed to publish a successful novel. It makes you wonder how people can get away with such behavior these days. - Dave Wolff

The Flower Of Evil (2003)
Directed by Claude Chabrol
Palm Pictures (USA)

If Claude Chabrol directed Wendy MacLeod's "The House Of Yes," it would have been something like "The Flower Of Evil," only Jackie-O's evil would have been shown as reasonable and less irrational. In this context, it would have made an interesting interpretation of MacLeod's comedy where the final revelation about the Pascals would have been driven home with more shocking finality. Besides, nobody would expect Jackie to view Lesly as less scrupulous than herself. "The Flower of Evil" is set in a refined household much like the Pascals' mansion in "The House Of Yes," in the midst of a political climate where one family's deepest secrets are dragged from the shadows and under society's microscope.
The opening shot of "The Flower Of Evil" establishes the long buried secrets in a French bourgeoisie mansion with a slow pace suggesting that something unspeakable is waiting at the end of the painstaking first glimpse of all the rooms. The time the camera takes to show us the entire mansion allows for more tension to mount as we get brief glimpses of seemingly disconnected family members here and there. One family member, a woman, doesn't seem as disconnected from what is to creep up on us. This woman is emotionally distraught from a horrid incident that could have happened as recently as ten minutes ago. When we see the dead body in the next room, we figure out what the incident was.
A director since the 50s, Chabrol revolutionized filmmaking in France by creating "nouvelle vague" without realizing he was doing so. His work was so influential that others began building on his vision, but the fact remains he was the first to bring deep isolation, doomed romance and inescapable tragedy to the screen in such a profound way. Even if The French "new wave" is said to have concluded in 1974, Chabrol is still taking the approach to its logical next step. Like many movies Chabrol has helmed, "The Flower Of Evil" reveals a seething anger and bitterness directed toward less than honorable conduct performed beneath honorable facades, especially on the part of the rich and well-to-do.
Known for adapting "Madame Bovary" in 1991, Chabrol earned a reputation as one of France's most prolific writers by churning out gripping Hitchcockian mysteries that usually deal with innocence befriending evil, infidelity and murder. Rejecting the approach to filmmaking of Godard, Rohmer and Truffaut, he etched his name next to theirs on his terms. His most memorable works include 1962's "L’Oeil Du Malin," 1969's "Que La Bête Meure," 1978's "Violette Nozière" and 1995's "La Ceremonie." There was also 1992's "Betty," an intense glimpse into a woman's mid-life crisis, but Chabrol's most infamous talent was for picking apart the wealthy lifestyles of the French upper classes, just as he does here.
It has been noted the anger in "The Flower of Evil" simmers beneath its calm exterior, threatening to overflow once the secrets of the family are even slightly revealed, and envelop the viewer in an ocean of wartime horror and painful memories. In tense moments that briefly show themselves from under the calm, then pull back again, we see not only how the public is easily influenced where politics are concerned, but how the public prefers to hold true, or perhaps feels safer holding true; whatever the media tells them is true, while the real truth is only shared by a select group of individuals when it finally comes to light. This seems to be the case in this movie, as much within this family as without.
"The Flower Of Evil" involves a certain amount of political mudslinging so vicious and cowardly it makes the battle of slander between American politicians look like a church social, as unscrupulous as the wealthy Chopin-Vasseur family is. When Anne Charpin-Vasseur (Nathalie Baye) campaigns for mayor, an anonymously written pamphlet is distributed everywhere to undermine her chances of being elected. Three generations of family secrets are brought to the public's attention, including intermarriage within the family, collaboration with the Nazis during World War II and finally murder. In the family's efforts to uncover the author, we discover which of these rumors are true and which are exaggerated.
Against this backdrop of political gossip, scandal and turmoil, Francois Charpin-Vasseur (Benoit Magimel) is returning to France after having studied law in America for three years, creating upheaval at home when he becomes infatuated with Michele (Melanie Doutey) who is his stepsister from Anne's marriage to Gerard (Bernard LeCoq). This happens as the fliers are being spread to cast a shadow on Anne's mayoral campaign. Naturally, the question of whether Francois has become too "Americanized" while away from home pales alongside his involvement with Michele as it would hardly help the scandal that already exists surrounding the Chopin-Vasseurs if word somehow ended up leaking to the public.
As for the rumors that are true, "The Flower Of Evil" doesn't gloat in retrospect of them but presents them as a case of which evil was the lesser one. The guilty parties in the Chopin-Vasseur family don't mean to keep their secrets as a matter of practicality, or even one of concealing shame, but one of allowing the ghosts of the past to rest forever. Only when these ghosts are resurrected against their will do they become destructive. To have the Chopin-Vasseurs guard their secrets for any other reason would be too predictable, boring and most of all pointless, especially considering the anonymity the political opposition hides itself behind while using their past as fuel to generate public embarrassment.
This is not to say that the Chopin-Vasseurs are exempt from Chabrol's ire, either. They are shown as hiding some of the methods they use to get ahead in the political world, if it was to happen over here in America, would generate a fair share of uproar from the anti-Bush voice in the media. But Chabrol is not criticizing either side from a political viewpoint, whether liberal or conservative; rather, he regards both sides with equal disdain. Likewise, Chabrol neither confirms or denies the allegations made about Anne, her family, or the curious circumstances surrounding her marriage to Gerard. No one in the household shows indignation to the material on the anonymous flier, but neither is there quiet submission.
It's this exactly sense of mystery that keeps you interested in what goes on here, right up to the conclusion. At times you suspect that many of the rumors being spread to undermine Anne's run for mayor may be more accurate than they are letting on, put together with scenes contributing to the mystery of who printed the slanderous flier and whether the partially incestuous relationship of Francois and Michele will be discovered despite the precautions they took to ensure secrecy. These moments create additional tension to a series of events that are already very tense, leaving dark trails across a family that otherwise appears immaculate by all surface impressions, trails that linger long after the film ends.
The character who most of the family turns to for help is Aunt Line (Suzanne Flon), who also happens to harbor the darkest secrets of all the family, though when these come to light we realize there were reasons for what she did, and they were as viable as the reasons she prevented them from becoming known for as long as three generations. These are revelations you have to pay close attention to each development of the movie in order to realize completely, but you just might find you can't help but sympathize with this character, in spite of everything. For all her secretiveness, this is the film's most moral character for the steps she took, believing she was doing what she had to do for her family. - Dave Wolff

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