IKINAI (Japanese with subtitles)
A review by Mark R. Leeper in bullet-list form
from the Toronto Internation Film Festival
CAPSULE: All passengers on a tour bus but one share a deadly secret. A suicide pact will kill everybody on the bus. The passengers live out their last days alive. Part comedy, part drama, we see the lives of the passengers amusing themselves as they approach death. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
- Hiroshi Shimizu directs from a screenplay by Dankan who also acts in the film. - The sign says "The Sunshine Club Okinawa New Years Tour." Yet everybody sitting on the bus seems strangely somber. Everybody is accounted for and the bus is about to leave when a young woman joins the group. Her uncle has been committed to an asylum and she will use his ticket. Reluctantly the tour manager lets her join the tour. Eventually we find out that the passengers and tour manager all have a suicide pact to send the bus over a cliff so the families can collect on insurance. - In many ways similar to LAST NIGHT we get to know the various people on the bus by their stories, what they choose to do in their final hours, word games they play on the bus, etc. - The film starts as a comedy, laughing at the various foibles and personality traits of the passengers. They argue over what to do about the woman who does not know about the suicide. Each has to entertain at a dinner. Some show tricks with chopsticks, one is obscene, etc. But as the suicide hour draws close the film becomes more serious and desperate in tone. - Some satire of dull bus tours. Also passenger-provided entertainment like on some tours I have been on. - One passenger's defense of the suicide plan: "All's well that ends hell."
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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