The problem of suicide is becoming truly global. Increasingly, suicide attempts are becoming a form of behavior that the average man resorts to in a given crisis situation.
Movie suicide
For various reasons, a person makes a decision to settle accounts with life. Every year, more than a million people die due to suicide on the planet, with only a third of them suffering from behavioral or mental disorders. A suicidal phenomenon is a statistically stable social phenomenon that excites not only professional physicians, but also the creative minds of the planet.
Filmmakers of all levels and stripes often pay attention to the sad phenomenon. They make films about suicide, looking for its root causes, linking the suicidal behavior of their heroes with individual laws: socio-economic or cultural-historical conditions for the development of society. This publication contains some of the most significant and resonant works of the modern film industry on such a burning topic.
The Parable of the Estate Leaving into oblivion
Director Masaki Kobayashi is one of the most controversial and colorful personalities of the Japanese film industry. The creations of the master reveal the true history of the country. In his projects, he builds a plot on the conflict, looking for original variations of his solution.
His painting “Harakiri” (1962) deservedly occupies the first position in the category “Best Suicide Films”. The plot is a discussion of a sacred ritual suicide closely interwoven with the Bushido samurai code. As a result, Masaki Kobayashi turned out to be one of the most significant films in the history of the Japanese and world film industry.
This was once again confirmed by the release of the remake in 2011 - “Harakiri 3D”. The director of the film, Takashi Miike, managed to keep the storyline, but in his author's version boldly shifted the emphasis. If Kobayashi's story turned out to be epic and strict, then Miike created a real arthouse movie with an emphasis on almost opera-related, dramatic drama. But who said modern suicide films cannot be violent romances with tears?
Existentially satirical challenge
The Italian director Marco Ferreri shot a lot of interesting, provocative films that caused violent scandals, rejection and protests of the guardians of morality and bigots. Among them there are unusual films about suicide, based on the so-called gastronomic reduction of accounts with life: “The Seed of Man,” “Dillinger is dead,” “Bitch.”
But the picture "Big Grub" (1973) exceeded all expectations. The film - an evil attack against the bourgeoisie - is brought to a logical climax in its illogicality. The release of the film into the rental provoked a grand scandal. The public was outraged by the behavior of the main characters - four long-standing middle-aged male friends who once gathered together just to eat. The heroes arranged small breaks for sleep and carnal joys, but food and gluttony always remained in the first place. They ate until their death. Here is a socio-political criticism of Marco Ferreri.
Movie slap
Films about the suicide of adolescents are most often shot based on real events. Sofia Coppola's project “Virgin Suicides” (1999), for example, is based on what happened in the stagnant 70s in the American provincial heartland. The script is based on documentary chronicles about the fragile feelings of teenagers in a sleepy patriarchal city. The author is the famous American writer Jeffrey Eugenidis.
The director in his debut work talks about a criminal case that caused a public outcry. Her film about the suicide of a girl and the consequences of her choice is a story about the unrealizability of the notorious American dream and the collapse of the first romantic feelings.
The story focuses on the apparently prosperous Lisbon family, in which 5 daughters grow up. But the idyll is destroyed by the suicide of the youngest girl. Parents, as if crazy, want to protect their children from unnecessary, in their opinion, contacts with the outside world, which leads to even more tragic consequences. Many suicide films raise a problematic issue - the relationship between fathers and children.
Typically Postmodern Product
Director and screenwriter Lee Chan Dong in 1999 makes the film "Peppermint." The project of film critics immediately ranked as typical film products of postmodernism. The author presents to the audience’s court an existential look at the life of the central character Kim Yonghu (Sol Gen Gu), while all the events in the film take place against the background of the country's history.
As already mentioned, films about suicide are often closely linked to patterns in the socio-economic development of the state. Lee Chan Dong's work is excellent proof of this. The author, taking on the arsenal of the famous dramatic reception-inversion, demonstrates the climax of the tragedy at the very beginning of the film. Then, through a series of retro- and introspections covering a period of 20 years, he immerses the viewer in a session of in-depth psychoanalysis, revealing the subconscious of the protagonist, focusing on traces of psychological trauma of his past. As a result, after watching the questions remain unanswered: was there a suicide attempt, did the death take place? The director does not show the fact of suicide, which is rather strange for Korean cinema, which often likes to savor bloody scenes.
Trilogy of Death
It was created by American director Gus Van Saint. His famous trilogy consists of paintings: “Jerry”, “Elephant” and “Last Days”. After watching the films, we can conclude that the author made an attempt to investigate death in all its manifestations: voluntary and violent. Inheriting the minimalism of the first two works in The Last Days, he inexorably captures the elusive evaporation of life, the slipping of the spiritual component from the body shell.
In "Elephant" two bored guys arrange shooting in high school. This film was shot on the basis of a real tragedy that happened in an educational institution. At the same time, in The Last Days, which echoes the Elephant, the author addresses the theme of a lonely man wandering in an absolutely hostile, alien world. Thus, without investigating, without imposing his point of view on what is happening, Gus Van Saint shows the viewer the last days of Michael Pitt's life, in which the world famous musician Kurt Cobain is easily recognized. Almost from the first minutes of timing, the viewer looks at the developing events through the eyes of a dead man.
Non existential dramas
There are a lot of such films. Not all pictures of suicide attempts are existential dramas, among them there are horror films about suicide. A fine example is the work of Fidon Papamaykl “Inside” (2008), in which evil is covered by virtue. The action takes place in a provincial religious town, in which the number of suicidal deaths is sharply increasing. Citizens consider Aiden to be the culprit, whose family, surrounded by religious fanatics, has always remained a black sheep.
Unable to withstand the vicissitudes of youthful maximalism ...
Films about teenage suicide usually reveal the pitfalls of the most problematic period in the life of every person. At this time, all, even minor, problems are becoming global. The child suffocates fear of the future, the need to enter into adulthood. It was at this time that teenagers were indifferent to almost everything that was happening. They are also pressured by the notorious first love, which is often unrequited and is considered eternal by virtue of youthful maximalism. The best works in this category are “2:37”, “Suicides: A Love Story”, “Suicide Children”, “Suicide Hall” and “Chat”.