Page 165 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
P. 165

152                                           Nightmare Japan

                              ‘alienation’,  the  fact  that  Shibusawa  endeavours  to  forge  an
                              external/inter-personal  connection  with  Mitsuko  implies  that  a  complete
                              surrender  to  information  technology’s  alienating  inertia  is  avoidable  if
                              each  person  simply  reaches  out  physically  and  emotionally  to  those
                              around him and feels ‘the pain of others as he would his own’.




























                              Image  16:  School  girls  clasp  hands  before  leaping  in  front  of  a  subway  in  Sono
                              Shion’s Suicide Circle (Courtesy Internet Movie Database)

                              The  spiralling  chain  of  precisely  sewn  rectangles  of  skin  found  at  the
                              location of  mass suicides need not represent the only  form of  connection
                              possible  in  a  late  capitalist  culture  in  which  ‘communication
                              technologies’  ironically  perpetuate  isolation;  while  the  wheels  of  flesh
                              may  circle  inward  to  nothingness,  they  also  curve  outward  toward  the
                              possibility  of  infinite  connections  that  need  not  conform  to  those  that
                              came  before.  In  other  words,  while  Sono’s  film  may  present  us  with  a
                              bleak, apocalyptic vision, the catastrophic events depicted throughout the
                              film  need  not  be  viewed  as  absolutely  destructive.  Though  Sono  leaves
                              the audience unsure as to the ramifications of the attempted connection in
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