[Review] 12 Suicidal Teens 十二人の死にたい子どもたち

 There are films that are enjoyed again and every time they bring back emotions and deep thoughts, this is one of them. A film that starts from great desperation and ends with hope and awareness that there may be more. Enjoy the Trailer at the end of the article.
The film is not one that cries out for a masterpiece, certainly there is better (and even worse) but it is a film that does what a genre like this has to do, make you think, empathize and follow the events to the end .

Released in 2019 by director Shigetomo Madarame, it tells the story of 12 people (between boys and girls) who gather in a hospital (I won't explicitly tell you why even if unfortunately this is one of those films that already has the spoiler in the title) where they find the body of a dead boy and the protagonists attempt to find the person who killed the boy. During their search, the reasons why they are in that old hospital are revealed which unexpectedly will lead them to make the opposite choice for which they came.

The cast is interesting, the characters are varied and are part of the common Japanese society, there is the great Kanna Hashimoto, one of my favorite actresses, who almost plays herself let's say.

The topic posed is one of the important ones in Japanese society, especially the modern one which sees an ever greater increase in suicides (in the end it's half a spoiler I know, but on the other hand it's already in the title unfortunately) among people. There is no distinction between regions, age or social status, it is a "plague" that affects the entire population and these groups are well represented in the film. Sure we find people with "serious" motivations and others who honestly don't make sense that I understand very little personally. What I like about the film is its approach to the problem.

The fact that everyone is there for the same reason, without per se seeing other reasons or ways out of their problems, meeting and unexpectedly finding themselves facing a situation that shakes them (the boy found dead), leads the 12 protagonists to ask questions, to wonder what happened, but above all to relate to others, to know their reasons, the reasons that would push them to that definitive gesture.

It's incredible how from the initial desperation with the preparation for death, they understand that it's not the only way anyway, that there's more, that they can face things differently.

It's a film that I've seen several times but it's one of my favourites, I repeat not for the mastery of the film, but for how the problem is treated. Have you ever seen it? If not, I hope you can recover it. In the meantime, I'll leave you the trailer below so you can get an idea.

 
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