battle royale (2000)

A class of teenagers are brought to a remote island under the guise of a class trip and forced to kill each other off until one remains. It's a brutal setup that's been a part of our cultural imagination, taking on many forms from Robinson Crusoe which I never read, to The Hunger Games trilogy which I ashamedly took part in. There was something about this film in particular that felt more succinct and distilled, a specific meditation on what it is like to be confronted by the idea of the death of others as an antidote to your own death. The characters were all interesting and engaging to watch, with their own unique motives and ways of coping, which was great, and the fact that they were kids made their acts of passion more believable. Of course, the female love interest was mostly a shell of a human being and served only to give emotional support to other men, but hey, just like prostitution is the world's oldest profession, so are cardboard female love interests the movie industry's oldest unhealing leg ulcer!!!

The pacing was fast, which I liked - we're told in stark text that the country is falling apart, that adolescents are boycotting school and youth crime is on the rise. In reaction, the "adults" pass the BR Act (Battle Royale) that allows for the premise of the movie. We're not told why or who in the world thought this was a good idea, which is perhaps comforting because it allows us to momentarily laugh at how preposterous and fictitious the premise is - that is, until we remember that the world we live in is no different in how it pits individuals and groups of people against each other in order to maintain a certain power hierarchy.

#distressed

Stylistically, I loved the white text on a black screen that would immediately appear after each death, showing the name and assigned number of the character that had died as if they were inevitable, each just one more number on a scoreboard displayed for the audience's benefit. Occasionally, during the deaths of more prominent characters, the camera would linger on their lifeless body and the text would appear right on top of that image, without the black background, forcing the audience to confront the gruesome fact of slaughter.

Overall this movie that does a great job rendering this kill or be killed narrative that we are so familiar with. It's immersive, and sweet and horrifying at once, though fairly easy to digest because the horror isn't anything new or backhanded. It's not unsettling to watch because they are children and perhaps we don't infuse within them any kind of lasciviousness or twisted deceit. They are simply trying, as we always are, when confronted with danger imposed by the existing world.