yeah the story was dumb and had no explanation for any of the events that occured within the story. why were the 5 girls doing what they did and why were they behind it all, wheres the motivation for such devious planning? what was the point in showing those j-pop rockstar pawns? how did every suicider get convinced to kill themselves? absolute garbage.
I thought the movie was relatively easy to understand. You have to look at the movie's plot symbolically. First, the children were preaching that everyone must have a strong connection to themselves. In Japan, many parents spend so much time working that they neglect their children and because of this neglect, the children cannot build that connection to themselves. This is shown with the investigator whose children commit suicide. And, since this connection needs to be built within the younger generation, it makes sense that it would be kids sending this message. Also, the idea of children is used to represent the rebirth of casting aside human connection for self connection, i.e. the chicks in the scene with the skin pealing and elsewhere in the movie. And since the children are trying to reach the youth of Japan, why wouldn't they use a J-pop group to spread the word? If people are going to try to complete themselves with consumer culture, what better way to reach them than with J-Pop music?
The entire part with the rocky horror J-rock band is meant to symbolize what people think suicide is. They think it's some flashy attempt at gaining attention, and this is reflected in the band. But this was not the real cause of suicide, because the suicides continued after the Rolly guy was stopped.
The cause of the suicides was not a suicide club at all. The point of the children's plan was not to encourage suicide, but to encourage the connection to ones self that I was talking about earlier. If someone doesn't have a sense of self worth and a connection to themselves, then they won't have a reason to live once their connection to other people is gone. So, these teenagers would cast aside their connections to one another (symbolized by the connected roll of skin), leaving only themselves. Many would then commit suicide, because they had no connection to themselves. Others, like Mitsuko, would continue living because they are connected to themselves. They are better, stronger people.
The only thing I haven't really thought about enough to explain is the whole scene with the nurses at the beginning, but I've only seen the movie once and it was a long time ago. I'm sure there's some explaination.
I appologize for the disorganized rambling.
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Anonymous2005-08-21 7:41
The film had one of the best opening scenes I've seen in a long time, but really lost it towards the end. Still, it's essential viewing, even if it's not necessarily a great film. Hopefully when Sono gets finished with the sequel it will iron out some of the problems of the first one.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 22:27
Great piece of shit. Funny, too.
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Anonymous2005-08-27 22:29
The director of Suicide Club apparently used to make gay porn, which explains a lot.