Dir. Hiroshi Shimizu
St./Scr. Dankan
Won the Ecumenical prize at Locarno Film Festival
What do you do if your suicidal in Japan? From a world leader in creative capitalism and a country with a frightening rate of suicide comes a novel innovation. Suicide pooling. Gather a bunch of depressed old men with big debts and small futures, insure them up to the hilt, and drive them off a cliff. For a tidy profit, of course.
This is the idea that strikes the morose lead, played by Dankan. He also wrote the screenplay and seemlessly fills the role as the matermind behind such a morbid invention. His character went to allot of trouble gathering a suicidal bus driver and several suicidal buisnessmen but the simple concept is thwarted by chance. A zany young girl stumbles across a ticket and throws the whole plan into jeapordy.
The early part of the film works the best. Dankan waits patiently by the side of a colourfully decorated tour bus. The straggling and depressed buisnessmen slowly make their way to him. Dankan is easily identified by the placard he holds. It reads, "Sunshine Club".
This is the first of numerous comedic openings for large doses of irony. Once the trip is started the travellers are forced by the happy-go-lucky interlopper to play a word game. She starts with "butterfly", and the mike gets passed around her fellow travellers. The best they can come up with are "death", "snake", "tragedy" and the like. The punishment for losing is cheerful karaoke.
From here the film turns into a road trip. They stop at cliched tourist destinations to take part in the inane entertainment. There are twelve in the party and every meal looks like the Last Supper. Yet, there is a zest for life, a freedom that can only come with throwing away your responsibilities forever. They are slowly and predictably converted to optimism by the healing presence of the young girl. It creates a hell of a job for Dankan who must guide his wayward clients to death. He behaves like a cross between a schoolteacher and an undertaker. The venture snowballs impossibly.
There are numerous asides that feature the cast in some metaphorical nowhere. They toy with a tin can, suicide, and stand about dramatically. The frequent cuts to this scene begin to wear after a while and were never quite convincing. Sunshine Club just doesn't rouse enough emotional interest to support the laconic direction. Long shots and long pauses are great, but in a shallow comedy they seem forced. The thoughtful moments did little but make me impatient for the next scene.
What made it worse was the colour. There is so much bland blue light in the film I found myself craving some inspiring scenery. It's effective for portraying a bruised, urban existance but there was no relief. As well as blue tints some scenes feature crimsons and purples. On a scratchy print this combined to make the whole thing seem like it was decaying. A suitable metaphor but arguably a waste of precious 35mm stock. A highlight was the Peruvian folk music that accompanied travel scenes. Very Kamikaze Taxi, very welcome.
Not a fantastic film but surely this is the way of the future. If you have to top yourself, why not go out with a bang and leave something for your family at the same time. Make it a gameshow where contestant will go to bizarre lengths to decapitate themselves for hard cash. The more spectacular, the more money. It would normalize the practice, make dead certain of the outcome and think of the ratings!
adam roff
comments? email the author
Other Japanese films screening at the festival: read reviews of Hana-bi, which Hiroshi Shimizu shot for Takeshi Kitano
After Life
Spriggan
return to 1999 Sydney Film Festival index