Saturday, August 13, 2011

Suicide (2004, Raoul Heimrich)


I've seen a lot of these "mockumentary" fake snuff/POV films such as the "August Underground" series, "Tumbling Doll of Flesh", "Suicide Dolls", etc, though Raoul Heimrich's "Suicide" is easily the most convincing approach to this particular cinematic form that I have seen. While most of this type of shit goes for blatant "shock" value like hardcore violence, sex, gore and other such selling points, "Suicide" consumes you in an aspect of realism that neither bores you, nor affronts you with forced facades of outrageous on-screen carnage (all of which I typically LOVE). The means in which this flick goes about it's straight-forward idea of communicating the extremes of online reality "shock" sites focuses on segmented variations of people intent on ending their lives...

A couple is apparently requesting the permission of suicidal people to show up at their home (or desired location) and record their last moments and death on video...

There's not a whole lot more to the film than that. The couple are shown in their car in between locations commenting on what was just shot. The rest of the film is a series of bleak and entirely disturbing simulations of various suicides conducted by different types and classes of people. Some explain in depth their reason for self-destruction - some are eerily silent about it. Eventually, it gets to the point where the couple become so warped by their new occupation that they become far too involved in what they are meant to record, obviously from an uninvolved perspective.

The most disturbing scene, in my opinion, simply involves two young women desperately attempting to overdose on pills. The scene is almost completely without dialog which makes it so absorbingly powerful that it's almost painful to watch. Other effective scenes include a harsh looking wrist-slashing, a heroin overdose, and a failed air-injection...

"Suicide" is one that's tough to recommend unless you can get into these "tougher" kinds of horror films. It's a fucked up, yet harrowing film that I urge you to check out!

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