THE DUKE ON SUICIDE CLUB
There are many, many reasons to love Asian culture, not least
among them being the fact that Urotsukidoji has a fella getting
possessed by his sex-limb and then chopping it off and then some
stuff about demons.
But the main reason why we should all love the Asian Culture, is
because they realise that The Youth are a bunch of malicious,
unpredictable, usually very very evil sons a bitches.
If they’re not blowing hell out of other on a damn island, or
getting possessed by something to do with a mobile phone, or
spreading a curse just because their folks flung them down a well
for to die, then they’re listening to abominable pop music or
letting the forces of darkness loose through the web-net.
Shion Sono, via his 2002 flick Suicide Club (Jisatsu Circle),
adds to this argument that yes, young uns are demented, is what,
by presenting a tale about how groups of high-school students are
just killing themselves for no apparent reason.
It kicks off in a train station, with 50-odd young lassies
standing holding hands on the platform, giggling and all that. A
train is due to arrive any second, and wouldn’t you know it,
these folks just fling themselves in front of it, showering
everyone else in fresh guts.
Add inconsiderate to the list of reasons why The Youth are evil
bastards.
Imagine the strain this puts on poor old Detective Kuroda, since
he already has to put up with his teenaged son and daughter, two
young ‘uns who just wanna watch pop music telly all day,
especially a group by the name of Dessart, a load of 14 year olds
who sing wretched J-Pop twaddle and yet somehow captivate
everyone and anyone who listens.
Add horrific taste in music to the list of reasons why The Youth
are evil bastards.
Anyway, what happens is stuff about folks are killing themselves
left and right, and next thing anyone knows there are rolls of
human flesh turning up, bits of skin all stitched together and so
on.
It’s all rather intriguing, is what. What’s going on here? Why is
there a web site predicting these events? What have that pop
group got to do with it all, if anything?
With a genius the likes of which Fatty Arbuckle flaunted before
he went and got all psychotic with a coke bottle, Sono decides,
half way in, that really, we don’t want to know a damn thing
about this crap. It’s all ridiculous, anyway.
Better to have a villain appear, and then for him to suddenly
assemble a goth-rock band before our very eyes and perform a song
for us, complete with bloodied bodies writhing about on the floor.
It’s like if Se7en suddenly forgot all about the murders and what
not, and just got The Cure in for an impromptu acoustic set.
Or like in The Young Ones, when the comedy would stop for a while
so as a “hip” band could come on and play a song for three
minutes. Then it would all go back to the way it was.
You might be thinking about how Sono obviously blew his load,
here, and the film can’t recover from this bout of left-field
twisting. But think the hell again, is what.
Suicide Club takes this goth-rock intermission to mean only one
thing.
To wit; that the entire narrative can now be torn apart before
our very skull-globs. Holy shit, you think. He can’t do that! But
guess what, motherfucker, I’m gonna go it right now, and then
I'll do it again, and just when you think the plot is approaching
something along the lines of predictability, then I’m gonna throw
in a load more nonsense for to baffle the hell out of your baffle-
glands.
Suicide Club is fresh, witty as all hell, and funny as when Eddie
Murphy used to say “Fuck” in his live shows.
Seriously, he used to say it all the motherfucking time, the
filthy-mouthed son of a bitch.
Add limited vocabulary to list of reasons why The Youth are evil
motherfucking bastards.
Suicide Club also, however, wants to say a little somethin’ bout
The Society, if you give it half a second. It wants to talk about
the disenfranchised youth, how they have become so jaded and
atomised that only this kind of communal self-murderising can
offer any thrill. It wants to talk about the effects of
corporate, market-driven “pop-music” on the culture and the
citizenship of a country. It wants to say all sorts of
intellectual stuff.
But it also wants to say how funny it is when a train-wheel
crushes someone’s head right in front of us. It wants to have the
goth-rock singer saying shit like “I’ve had delusions of grandeur
since I was a child.”
It’s a brilliant slice of black-comedy, a scarily accurate
satire, and probably 82% better than, say, Dead Poets Society,
what also had teenagers in a club, but they just read Keats and
shit and then maybe stood on top of a desk.
Add pitiful attempts at “rebellion” to list of reasons why The
Youth are evil bastards.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line Via Electronical Email
among them being the fact that Urotsukidoji has a fella getting
possessed by his sex-limb and then chopping it off and then some
stuff about demons.
But the main reason why we should all love the Asian Culture, is
because they realise that The Youth are a bunch of malicious,
unpredictable, usually very very evil sons a bitches.
If they’re not blowing hell out of other on a damn island, or
getting possessed by something to do with a mobile phone, or
spreading a curse just because their folks flung them down a well
for to die, then they’re listening to abominable pop music or
letting the forces of darkness loose through the web-net.
Shion Sono, via his 2002 flick Suicide Club (Jisatsu Circle),
adds to this argument that yes, young uns are demented, is what,
by presenting a tale about how groups of high-school students are
just killing themselves for no apparent reason.
It kicks off in a train station, with 50-odd young lassies
standing holding hands on the platform, giggling and all that. A
train is due to arrive any second, and wouldn’t you know it,
these folks just fling themselves in front of it, showering
everyone else in fresh guts.
Add inconsiderate to the list of reasons why The Youth are evil
bastards.
Imagine the strain this puts on poor old Detective Kuroda, since
he already has to put up with his teenaged son and daughter, two
young ‘uns who just wanna watch pop music telly all day,
especially a group by the name of Dessart, a load of 14 year olds
who sing wretched J-Pop twaddle and yet somehow captivate
everyone and anyone who listens.
Add horrific taste in music to the list of reasons why The Youth
are evil bastards.
Anyway, what happens is stuff about folks are killing themselves
left and right, and next thing anyone knows there are rolls of
human flesh turning up, bits of skin all stitched together and so
on.
It’s all rather intriguing, is what. What’s going on here? Why is
there a web site predicting these events? What have that pop
group got to do with it all, if anything?
With a genius the likes of which Fatty Arbuckle flaunted before
he went and got all psychotic with a coke bottle, Sono decides,
half way in, that really, we don’t want to know a damn thing
about this crap. It’s all ridiculous, anyway.
Better to have a villain appear, and then for him to suddenly
assemble a goth-rock band before our very eyes and perform a song
for us, complete with bloodied bodies writhing about on the floor.
It’s like if Se7en suddenly forgot all about the murders and what
not, and just got The Cure in for an impromptu acoustic set.
Or like in The Young Ones, when the comedy would stop for a while
so as a “hip” band could come on and play a song for three
minutes. Then it would all go back to the way it was.
You might be thinking about how Sono obviously blew his load,
here, and the film can’t recover from this bout of left-field
twisting. But think the hell again, is what.
Suicide Club takes this goth-rock intermission to mean only one
thing.
To wit; that the entire narrative can now be torn apart before
our very skull-globs. Holy shit, you think. He can’t do that! But
guess what, motherfucker, I’m gonna go it right now, and then
I'll do it again, and just when you think the plot is approaching
something along the lines of predictability, then I’m gonna throw
in a load more nonsense for to baffle the hell out of your baffle-
glands.
Suicide Club is fresh, witty as all hell, and funny as when Eddie
Murphy used to say “Fuck” in his live shows.
Seriously, he used to say it all the motherfucking time, the
filthy-mouthed son of a bitch.
Add limited vocabulary to list of reasons why The Youth are evil
motherfucking bastards.
Suicide Club also, however, wants to say a little somethin’ bout
The Society, if you give it half a second. It wants to talk about
the disenfranchised youth, how they have become so jaded and
atomised that only this kind of communal self-murderising can
offer any thrill. It wants to talk about the effects of
corporate, market-driven “pop-music” on the culture and the
citizenship of a country. It wants to say all sorts of
intellectual stuff.
But it also wants to say how funny it is when a train-wheel
crushes someone’s head right in front of us. It wants to have the
goth-rock singer saying shit like “I’ve had delusions of grandeur
since I was a child.”
It’s a brilliant slice of black-comedy, a scarily accurate
satire, and probably 82% better than, say, Dead Poets Society,
what also had teenagers in a club, but they just read Keats and
shit and then maybe stood on top of a desk.
Add pitiful attempts at “rebellion” to list of reasons why The
Youth are evil bastards.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line Via Electronical Email
