While I averted my eyes from the bloody stench of reality, my daughters disappeared from this forced portrait of harmony.
wow. what do i even say about this movie. absolutely incredible movie. i loved its handling of themes like family and isolation. noriko was deeply relatable to me, but so was yuko. i used to fantasize about disappearing the way yuko did too, and when her dad read the story she wrote before disappearing it really broke me. the ways she predicted wrong were so heartbreaking, and the dad's reaction to it was too. i couldn't help but cry at so many moments throughout the movie. i used to spend so much time imagining how others would react if i did things like run away and disappear, but the truth is you'd never really know. we never know what's happening to each other, not completely, and sometimes we see only the things we want. tetsuzo wanted a perfect, happy family, so he only saw that. he couldn't see the ways his family was broken. noriko was so fixated on all the things wrong that she refused to see the things that made her relationship with her family worth trying to save. those are my immediate thoughts. it feels like i just experienced like a million hours of movie.
im watching this movie before watching suicide club, which might be the wrong order, but i at least think this movie holds up very strongly on its own. im excited to see suicide club next though