FACETS CINÉMATHÈQUE
September 2007
The Facets Cinémathèque is located at 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. in Chicago. For more information on films playing in the Cinémathèque, please call 773-281-4114. To order advance tickets online, visit the TicketWeb website by clicking here.
Chicago Premiere
NORIKO'S DINNER TABLE
(NORIKO NO SHOKUTAKU)
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WINNER
Don Quixote Award and Special Mention Karlovy Vary Film Fest |
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WINNER
Festival Prize Yokohama Film Fest |
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"Continually surprising"
-TV Guide
"Sono's new film has the same I'll-do-whatever-I-damn-well-feel-feels-right feel [as
Suicide Club] but is less formally disjunctive, more nuanced, more aesthetically assured, lighter...even in its grisly, blood-soaked climax."
-Senses of Cinema
"Strange but suggestive...may leave genre fans frustrated but the arthouse crowd intrigued"
-Variety
"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"
-Los Angeles Times

½ "Suspenseful, unsettling...splendidly insidious"
-Chicago Sun-Times
"[An] intriguing slab of Nipponese weirdness (one of the recurrent specialties at Facets)...haunting"
-NewCity Chicago
A new thriller by acclaimed Japanese director-poet Sion Sono, a prequel/sequel to his cult horror hit
Suicide Club. Bored and restless with her oppressively ordinary small-town existence, 17-year-old Noriko runs away to Tokyo to meet friends she has contacted in an online community for girls her own age, who have become such an important part of her life. Adrift in the big city, she discovers that her Internet pals are in fact part of a rent-a-family outfit that assumes roles and plays out whatever family drama their lonely clients want to stage. Noriko joins the band of players, and is a natural, even though she sometimes has difficulty separating the emotional play-acting from her real feelings. Back at home, Noriko's younger sister runs away and joins the club in an attempt to discover the fate of her missing sister. With both daughters gone, their father, Tetsuzo, becomes obsessed with the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his two daughters and the terrifying suicide circle that is panicking the nation. Utterly alone, Tetsuzo embarks on a frantic hunt to find Noriko and Yuka and reunite his family, even if it means he has to hire his own daughters to act the part!
Directed by Sion Sono, Japan, BetaSP, 159 mins. In Japanese with English subtitles.
YouTube trailer
Director site
Time Out NY
TV Guide
Los Angeles Times
Chicago Sun-Times
NewCity Chicago
Showtimes:
Fri., Sept. 14 at 6:30 pm
Sat. Sept. 15 at 12:30, 3:30 & 6:30 pm
Sun., Sept. 16 at 6:30 pm
Mon., Tues. & Thurs., Sept. 17, 18 & 20 at 6:30 pm
Tickets: