Battle Royale
July 20th, 2005The other day it was my, er, pleasure to watch Battle Royale, the cult Japanese Lord of the Flies meets The Running Man (whilst on crack) movie. The basic premise is that a government, losing control of the nation’s youth, tries to reassert its authority by instituting a brutal social programme. Every year, a randomly-selected class of school pupils are drugged, taken to a remote island, given weapons and told only that they must kill each other; the last one surviving will be allowed back home as an example of the monstrosity they are clamping down on.
My first thoughts on watching it was My God, I just hope no-one from the Home Office watches this. My more settled thoughts are that it’s not a bad film, it has its flaws for sure, and no doubt some of the best dialogue is lost in translation (such as this - warning, spoiler), but it’s quite a stark telling of what happens when otherwise innocent and happy people are demonised, ghettoised and made to turn on each other. More refreshingly, there’s none of the crap that you’d get if there had been a British version, which would no doubt try and hook it up with the whole reality TV phenomenon merely to please the likes of Mark Lawson and Zoe Williams, happily chin-stroking in the media columns (aargh, my thoughts are polluted by Ben Elton’s Dead Famous). Nor is there the shlocky post-ironic fauxmodern, let’s see how cool you can make yourself look by referencing as many films as you can throughout (and if we can get some boobies in there too, that’d be great) that you’d get if it was turned into an American slash flick. No. No blatant and desperate attempt to be seen ‘commenting’ on ‘current issues’, no egotistical worship of false idols, instead, it’s good, old-fashioned combination of brutal violence, betrayal and emotional bonding, with just the right amount of gallows humour, which nicely makes what satire there is much more subtle. It is uncomfortable to watch, absolutely, but that’s because it’s honest: it’s human beings mercilessly killing other human beings. You should be uncomfortable watching it.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:03:20
erm… did you mean the Ben Elton link to go to where it goes?
July 21st, 2005 at 13:11:08
Ack, no I didn’t. Was only meant to be an Amazon link anyway. Have now fixed, thanks.
July 21st, 2005 at 18:41:59
my son says that the only scene which is really ucomfortable is when 2 people have a fight rather than sex and she ends up stabbing him in the gonads. He found that “uncomfortable to watch”. He like you, liked the film though
July 21st, 2005 at 19:47:24
I found it a really funny black comedy (ok, very black). My favourite bit (spoiler alert) is where the boy with the navigating gadget looks everywhere for the girl he fancies, only for her to kill him when he finds her. “You never even spoke to me! what do i do now!” she says, before immediately getting killed herself. Merciless stuff.