SummaryNoriko's Dinner Table is Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono's semi-sequel to the 2001 cult hit "Suicide Club," a suspense classic concerning a mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls involved in a disturbing cult. [Two Boots Pioneer Theater]
SummaryNoriko's Dinner Table is Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono's semi-sequel to the 2001 cult hit "Suicide Club," a suspense classic concerning a mass suicide of 54 schoolgirls involved in a disturbing cult. [Two Boots Pioneer Theater]
Through a barrage of fragmented images of lurid events, escalating hysteria and sheer madness, Sono holds up a cracked mirror to modern life, inspiring the viewer to think with unexpected seriousness about what it means to be a human being.
Neither a prequel nor a sequel. Nor is it really much of a horror movie: It's a bizarre, bloody family drama that puts its predecessor into a larger social context.
This 159-minute feature doesn't quite cohere. Mr. Sono's direction is haphazard; he oversells the first half's whimsical touches and the second half's spiral-of-doom emoting. Still, the movie is worth seeing, if only to experience a small story with impossibly grand ambitions.
Although told through a cascade of flashes forward and back, the puzzle doesn't quite form a complete picture by the end, which may leave genre fans frustrated but the arthouse crowd intrigued.