Suicide Room – Sala samobójców (2011)

Directed by: Jan Komasa | 110 minutes | drama | Actors: Jakub Gierszal, Roma Gasiorowska, Agata Kulesza, Krzysztof Pieczynski, Bartosz Gelner, Danuta Borsuk, Piotr Nowak, Filip Bobek, Kinga Preis, Anna Ilczuk, Bartosz Porczyk, Piotr Glowacki, Aleksandra Hamkalo, Krzysztof Dracz

Dominik (Jakub Gierszal) is eighteen years old and comes from a high-class family. He has everything he wants, but it doesn’t all go as smoothly as Dominik would think. He develops feelings for a male classmate. When his fellow students find out about this, Dominik is quickly ridiculed on the internet. The fear of facing his classmates is so high that he decides to continue his life on the internet, as it were. He logs in to the interactive world of ‘Second life’. Here he meets the mysterious girl Sylwia (Roma Gasiorowska) who takes him to a very special room, a room for people who want to end their lives.

‘Suicide Room’ by director Jan Komasa is anything but a cheerful but certainly a realistic film. The fear of facing the world and people who lock themselves in their rooms in order to turn an interactive network into their new life is current and the power of the internet is sometimes underestimated. With ‘Suicide Room’, Jan Komasa shows how a bizarre domestic situation, in which Dominik hardly gets any love from his parents who are too keen on their career, can completely derail, hinder his social development, completely turn into depression and even into suicidal thoughts. can lead.

The combination of the acting and the animation is a special one, but it doesn’t come out quite right. Cinematographically, the film is rock solid, but unfortunately the animation style sometimes comes across as a bit cheap and therefore does not continuously impress. In contrast, the scenes about Dominik and his continuing withdrawal from the internet are excellent. The dialogues with his girlfriend Sylwia are captivating to say the least and the gap between his parents and Dominik that keeps growing is shocking to see.
The interesting premise in which Dominik discovers a world with ‘Second Life’ where like-minded and tormented young people talk about the misunderstanding of the world and an early termination of their lives, ultimately shows that there is nothing glorious about death. The scene in which a drug overdose is taken is so horribly portrayed that it really goes through the marrow.

‘Suicide Room’ is a strong coming-of-age film that continues to intrigue from start to finish. This is mainly due to the excellent acting of Jakub Gierszal and Roma Gasiorowska. A Polish recommendation.