Noriko's Dinner Table
| Noriko's Dinner Table Noriko no Shokutaku |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Sion Sono |
| Produced by | Takeshi Suzuki |
| Written by | Sion Sono |
| Starring | Kazue Fukiishi Ken Mitsuishi |
| Music by | Tomoki Hasegawa |
| Cinematography | Souhei Tanigawa |
| Editing by | Junichi Ito |
| Studio | Mother Ark Co. Ltd. |
| Distributed by | Eleven Arts (Worldwide) Tidepoint Pictures |
| Release date(s) | April 2, 2006 (US) September 23, 2006 (Japan) |
| Running time | 159 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Noriko's Dinner Table (紀子の食卓 Noriko no Shokutaku) is a Japanese film, promoted as the prequel to the cult film Suicide Club (Jisatsu Sākuru), written and directed by Sion Sono, concerning a mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls and how it leads the law to a shadowy cult. Noriko's Dinner Table takes place before, during, and after the Suicide Circle timeline as an attempt to resolve some questions Suicide Circle left behind.
Noriko's Dinner Table explores various issues including the generation gap in modern families, the concepts of family and happiness, suicide, lack of communication, the effects of alienation and how the Internet is used as a tool.
The film was released theatrically in Japan on September 23, 2006, and won the Don Quixote award at the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic and a special mention.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film is divided into 5 chapters, the first four of which are named after characters in the film: Noriko, Yuka, Kumiko and Tetsuzo, in that order. The plot is told non-linearly and shifts between the perspectives of Noriko, Yuka and Tetsuzo.
A shy and demure 17-year-old teenage girl named Noriko Shimabara (Kazue Fukiishi) lives with her quiet family, formed by her sister Yuka (Yuriko Yoshitaka), her mother Taeko (Sanae Miyata), and her father Tetsuzo (Ken Mitsuishi), in Toyokawa, Japan. Noriko finds her small-town life unsatisfying and craves to move to Tokyo, assuming she would live a more active life there. This sentiment is especially encouraged when she finds that her elementary school friend Tangerine (Yoko Mitsuya) is now working independently as an idol. Noriko's father is strictly against her going to the city, and plans on having her join a local university after school.
Feeling alienated and misunderstood by her parents, Noriko resorts to the internet where she finds Haikyo.com, a website where other teenagers from Japan gather. There, after making new and unknown friends, she feels truly at "home" and eventually, on December 10, 2001, runs away from her unhappy life to Tokyo, where she plans on meeting the website's leader, a mysterious girl who uses the screen name "Ueno Station 54". Once in Tokyo, Noriko logs onto the website and contacts Ueno54. They meet up at Locker #54 in Ueno Train Station, where it is revealed that she is a relatively young woman named Kumiko. She introduces Noriko to her family and takes Noriko to visit her grandparents. As it turns out, however, Noriko has no real family, and the people she introduced Noriko to are paid actors working for Kumiko's organisation, I.C. Corp. The organisation offers paid roleplay services to interested clients, allowing them to fulfil their fantasies of a happy family life.
Six months later, 54 girls decide to act out their roles by jumping in front of a train at Shinjuku station and committing suicide. They happily die in their roles, splattering all of the onlookers (including Noriko and Kumiko) in blood. Back in Toyokawa, Yuka, who was also a member of Haikyo.com, wonders if her sister was involved in the mass suicide. She writes a story speculating how her father would react if she were to disappear as well, and deliberately leaves clues before running of to Tokyo to join I.C. Corp.
Tetsuzo attempts to put on a brave face after Yuka's disappearance, but his wife Taeko's mental condition deteriorates rapidly and she eventually commits suicide. Meanwhile, Tetsuzo, a reporter, gathers clues regarding his daughters' disappearances and discovers Yuka's story. He is crushed to find that his daughters could predict his actions and behaviour so accurately while he was completely aloof of his daughters' feelings. His investigations reveal Haikyo.com and taking a cue from sensationalist media tabloids, he concludes that his daughters are part of a cult called the "Suicide Club".
Tetsuzo contacts a member of I.C. Corp, who refutes the existence of a "suicide club" and instead expounds on a concept of social roles that forms the basis of his organisation. Tetsuzo gets an old friend of his, Ikeda Shirô Namiki to pose as a client for I.C. Corp and rent Kumiko as his wife, and Noriko and Yuka as his daughters (who go by the aliases Mitsuko and Yoko respectively). Tetsuzo finds a house in Tokyo resembling his own and moves all the furniture from the old house to the new one, to resemble it exactly. Mitsuko and Yoko are unsettled when they arrive at the house, but try their best to keep up the act. Ikeda sends Kumiko away on an errand and Tetsuzo reveals himself. The girls treat him as a stranger and insist that they are Mitsuko and Yoko, not Noriko and Yuka.
As the situation falls apart, thugs from the organisation arrive on site to beat up Tetsuzo, who attacks them with a knife and kills them all in the living room. Kumiko arrives from her errand shortly thereafter, and Tetsuzo begins acting as if Kumiko is his wife. The latter implores Tetsuzo to break out of the role and kill her, so that he may free Noriko and Yuka from the organisation. Yuka interrupts the heated conversation and asks to 'extend the session'.
Finally, Tetsuzo, Kumiko, Mitsuko and Yoko dine together as a happy family. Yuka, the most emotionally vulnerable of the two daughters, does not sleep that night and at the crack of dawn, leaves the home, shedding her roles and names. Mitsuko awakens shortly thereafter and to herself, bids goodbye to Yuka, adolescence, Haikyo.com and Mitsuko, before finally declaring that she is Noriko.
By the end, two years have passed in this film and 18 months since Suicide Club.
[edit] Cast
- Kazue Fukiishi as Noriko Shimabara/Mitsuko
- Ken Mitsuishi as Tetsuzo Shimabara
- Yuriko Yoshitaka as Yuka Shimabara/Yôko
- Tsugumi as Kumiko/Ueno54
- Sanae Miyata as Taeko Shimabara
- Shirô Namiki as Ikeda
- Yôko Mitsuya as Tangerine
- Tamae Andô as Broken Dam
- Chihiro Abe as Long Neck
- Hanako Onuki as Midnight
- Naoko Watanabe as Cripple
- Hiroshi Sakuma
[edit] Novel
Suicide Circle: The Complete Edition (自殺サークル 完全版 Jisatsu Sākuru: Kanzenban) was written by Sion Sono in April 2002. This book was as a draft of sorts for Noriko's Dinner Table, according to Sono. In fact, the movie is divided in four "chapters", as the book, and is constantly narrated by its characters, like the book. The story of The Complete Edition deals with both the events of this film and those of its prequel, Suicide Club. So far no plans for an English edition have appeared.
[edit] External links
- "Noriko's Dinner Table". Eleven Arts. Archived from the original on 2006-06-15. http://web.archive.org/web/20060615174350/http://www.elevenarts.net/noriko/. Retrieved 2011-10-28.
- Noriko's Dinner Table at the Internet Movie Database
- Noriko's Dinner Table at AllRovi
- Soundtrack #2
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