Suicide (2001)

Touches You

Blistering performances.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This really was not a nice film. The story behind it is rubbish and the images in the film are not that brutal but the overall idea is truly brutal and shocking. Some scenes are really hard to handle. This comes about from the amateurish realism of the way that the film is shot. But this is also its major let-down – it is too amateurish. Not a very original idea and there is almost no production value this film gets its shock value from the brutal yet non-graphic death scenes. It is hard to think how anyone survived this film. Not a nice film at all.

A particularly harrowing variation on what is already an extremely harsh genre—pseudo-snuff—German indie effort Suicide (AKA FinalCut.com) follows two film-makers as they record a series of suicides with the intention of selling the footage to the highest bidder. Having advertised online for willing participants in their project, the couple travel from location to location, capturing the final moments of the mentally ill, the lonely, and the hopeless.The film opens as the first victim climbs a flight of stairs whilst discussing the pros and cons of various methods of suicide; he has decided that hurling oneself from a tall, derelict building is the most reliable way to end his life. However, when it comes to throwing himself into the void, the man has second thoughts and runs away, but winds up falling to his death anyway after he stumbles through a hole in the floor. The irony of his demise softens the blow somewhat, and a couple of the deaths that follow also raise an uncomfortable smile (one cannot help but giggle nervously at times), but the inevitable, cumulative effect of watching a succession of people top themselves is depression.Shot with realism in mind, Suicide is extremely downbeat viewing: it's really uncomfortable to witness a pair of teenage girls wash down pills with vodka, a student inject an overdose of heroin at the base of his junk, a sad old geezer suffer a heart attack after not taking his medication, a woman gassing herself in her car, a goth slash his wrists, and a guy inject himself with air (which proves what the first chap says—it's a bloody painful way to go!). In fact, it comes as a bit of a relief when, towards end of the film, there is a slight shift in mood: the film-makers themselves become involved in the taking of lives, adding an element of plot, and a silly twist ending acts as a valve to release some of the pressure.Well acted, well made and thought provoking, but perhaps a tad too repetitive to be totally engrossing, Suicide is definitely not an easy film to watch, and something I would only recommend to hardened viewers of challenging horror. I guess a 7/10 out of 10 would be a fair rating: it's good, but not something I'll be revisiting any time soon.

Raoul W. Heimrichs film "Finalcut.com" (2001) shows different people trying to commit suicide in different ways. A man who is determined to precipitate himself from a high building is unable to do it in the last moment. He calls himself a coward and asks for help. The question arises if these people who are unable to perform their chosen form of suicide act cowardly or not. First, in Germany and in most parts of Europe, people do not have the choice of shooting themselves. Therefore, they have to come up with strange ways to fulfill their desire, they cannot really choose. Not everybody is the type to jump from an altitude. Not everybody has the possibility to get a painless and quickly working poison. Not everybody knows that it is sufficient to chew half a pack of cigarettes. The girls who are portrayed in this film do not know, that they should have swallowed tablets against sea-sickness, that would have prevented them from throwing up, before they swallowed Valium together with Vodka.In short, failed suicides have at least two reasons: The unavailability of the way of going out of this life that fits to the respective type of person, and the lack of knowledge how to perform this action successfully. One man who is lethally sick from cancer suggests in the movie that there should be hospitals prepared for people who want to end their lives. As a matter of fact, there are none in Europe, and active euthanasia is prohibited by law (and passive euthanasia in several countries as well). From an ethic standpoints for humans and not for an abstract and unknown "god", it is not understandable that such institutions do not exist. Every child has to go almost twenty years through education in order to be ready to cope with the problems of everyday life. But nobody teaches adults even for twenty minutes what is to do if somebody cannot or does not want to go on living anymore. The results of this deplorable lack of information are lifetime invalids, crippled limbs, brain damages, visible cord-marks around the neck, scars around the wrists, etc. Everything concerning death, and not only suicide, is still tabooed, on both sides of the Ocean, and as far as I know on all five continents. The same people who have no problems to set children in this world do not even come to the idea that not everybody fits into this world. However, if they must or want to stop living, they are let alone. This movie should be shown and discussed in the schools around the globe.

! ! ! Watch out! Spoilers! ! !There are two sorts of German amateur movies. The gory "funny" ones, and the ones who want to tell something, who are critical of society."Suicide", I guess, also wants to tell something. But unfortunately it mumbles in that way.. you don't understand the message.The film starts interesting, a couple follows a guy with a camera. The guy wants to jump off a building but can't do it in the end. He starts crying and runs away from the camera.. Since his life is really at the end he slips and falls off... I guess he didn't have the right shoes.The rest of the film we see alternately the couple driving in their car to the next "death session" while they talk about it, and the killings of many people in different variations. We've got a junk with an overdose, a guy who stabs himself (DON'T watch the "acting" here or you start crying!), a shooting guy, a heart attack and angst girls who swallow pills. As a "plot turn" the neutral camera man starts killing one guy... anyway it doesn't have any effect to the story.Sounds interesting so far? Then you like my description but not that film! The end "joke" is a real/faked killing. The girl (of the couple) drives her neutral camera man to death (she tells him she fakes it, so he can be official dead, cause he killed somebody..).The plot, well, the idea is sort of nice although the joke of the documentary-style is kind of strained. We see people talking to the camera how shitty the world is and they want to end it and more then one time after they tried to kill themselves they regret it. One or two times this can be nice, but not for feature length! We see characters and we (and in that point the film is very realistic) just don't care about them, cause they're losers from the street. Everyday faces without a background. This leads to a numb feeling and after 2 kills the viewer's only interest is the kind of the next killing.The actors, ha, OK it is an amateur production and nobody can expect high acting skills, but here it seems that the neighbor boys and girls helped out. Unfortunately this is not enough to make the film believable."Suicide" could have been a great short film! I'm pro amateur production with a good idea and motivated makers. But to stretch a good idea to feature length can it make boring. It's a pity for "Suicide".