Page 164 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
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Spiraling into Apocalypse                               151

                              who  alone  reaches  out  to  comfort  Mitsuko  following  her  boyfriend’s
                              suicide. If Sono Shion’s Suicide Circle can be read as espousing even the
                              faintest  glimmer  of  optimism  or  hope  in  the  face  of  a  seemingly
                              apocalyptic  crisis,  such  an  understanding  hinges  upon  the  sporadic,  yet
                              strategically  placed  representations  of  Shibusawa’s  altruism.  Sono
                              provides  perhaps  the  most  important  representation  of  Shibusawa’s
                              selflessness  in  Suicide  Circle’s  penultimate  sequence,  a  tense  series  of
                              tracking and  static shots that recall  the  film’s shocking  opening.  After a
                              multitude of female high school students descend the wide concrete steps
                              leading  to  a  subway  platform,  a  parade  accompanied  by  ringing  cell
                              phones playing the refrains of various Desert/Dessert/Dessret tunes, Sono
                              cuts  to  a  medium  shot  of  Shibusawa  scanning  the  crowd  for  Mitsuko
                              until, in a reverse shot, we see her waiting for the approaching train. Next,
                              in a medium two shot, Shibusawa approaches Mitsuko and grasps her arm
                              to  prevent her  from  potentially leaping to  her death.  With an  expression
                              that vacillates between annoyance  and  confusion, Mitsuko  pulls her  arm
                              from Shibusawa’s grip and continues towards the platform’s edge before
                              looking  back  over  her  shoulder  at  the  detective.  The  camera  zooms  in
                              quick  to  a  closer  shot  of  Mitsuko,  followed  by  a  series  of  cross-cuts
                              between a close up of the young detective’s worried visage and a medium
                              shot  of  Mitsuko  looking  sad  but  determined.  As  the  train  arrives,  Sono
                              cuts back to a close up of Shibusawa, and then cuts back to a full shot of
                              Mitsuko as she slowly turns, boards the train, and then looks back again
                              at  the  detective,  her  body  now  framed  by  the  closing  subway  door.
                              Finally, Sono  cuts back  to a medium shot  of  Shibusawa watching as  the
                              subway cars roll out of the station with a metallic hiss and squeal.
                                     Of  course,  the  wordless  exchange  described  above  is  an
                              ambivalent  conclusion  at  best.  The  troubled  expressions  and  abortive
                              gestures  throughout  the  sequence  promote  this  sense  of  ambiguity.
                              Mitsuko,  after  all,  pulls  away  from  Shibusawa;  the  subway  door
                              ultimately  slides  shut,  separating  the  protagonists  both  literally  and
                              figuratively.  However,  it  is  precisely  this  indeterminacy  that  allows
                              viewers  to  read  the  film’s denouement  as  ultimately  hopeful.  Although
                              ‘cut  off’  from  one  another  in  a  geographical  space  (a  subway  station)
                              linked  throughout  the  film’s  diegesis  with  notions  of  ‘transience’  or
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