Suicide Room

Plot

The movie begins in a theatre, where Dominik Santorski and his parents listen to Schubert's lied "Der Doppelgänger", which provides a key to the interpretation of the whole film. His parents have success-driven careers and are out of touch with their son's life. Dominik is popular at his private school, but is also spoiled by the perks given to him by his wealthy parents. While at school, his friends stumble upon a self-harm video while using his computer. Later, he watches the rest of the self-harm video and leaves a comment for the poster.

While drinking at an after-prom party, a girl admits to lesbian experimentation. She agrees to demonstrate for her friends, to their amusement. Dominik is then asked to kiss a boy, Aleksander, for the group's continued amusement. A video of the kiss is posted to a social media site, and Dominik's friends tease him about the kissing in the following days. He plays along, returning Aleksander's "pretend" longing gaze. Later, at judo practice, Dominik and Aleksander are sparring, and Dominik becomes pinned beneath his friend. During the struggle that follows, Dominik is excited to the point of ejaculation. This event is relayed to a social media site, which angers Dominik.

From his previous comment to the self-harm video, he is invited to join a 3D social network. He meets Sylwia (Sylvia), a suicidal girl who cuts herself and wears a mask, in "Sala Samobójców" (The Suicide Room). In The Suicide Room, the group members watch films of people killing themselves. Sylwia and Dominik develop a bond, and Dominik begins skipping school to spend more time with her through the online world.

Dominik and his family attend another opera, where they try to pair him with another family's daughter. Dominik acts out by insisting that he's gay and making out with one of the male busts in the lobby. His parents, embarrassed by Dominik's outburst, are angry with him and force him to go back to school. He returns home and sees a posted video showing shadow puppets (named after Dominik and Aleksander) engaging in various homosexual acts. The video drives Dominik to tears and causes him to rampage through his room.

Sylwia mocks him for being upset; she says that he is different from others and encourages him to scare the normal people. Dominik changes his style, adopting the hair styles and clothing of alternative subculture, and takes his father's gun to school. When Aleksander approaches him with some friends after school, Dominik panics and runs to the safety of a taxi. When recounting the incident to Sylwia, he claims that he had scared his friend and was in total control of the situation. They return to The Suicide Room and Dominik finds out that Sylwia is a shut-in and has not left her room in 3 years. Dominik stays locked in his room for 10 days talking with her, and refuses to eat. These events go unnoticed by his parents, who often spend days out of the house on business and engage in extramarital sexual affairs. Eventually, their housekeeper calls the police, who break in Dominik's bedroom door and find him sitting in a pool of his blood beside a broken mirror. He is sent to a hospital and kept in a psychiatric ward for 3 days. His parents arrive to take him home, claiming that there is nothing wrong with him, and he should not be wasting time at the hospital when he should be studying for his final exams.

When Dominik returns home and goes back to The Suicide Room, he hears the group discussing their plans for suicide, but they refuse to discuss it with him. Upon hearing that his parents are trying to get him to speak with a psychiatrist, Sylwia opens up to him. She tells him a love story that ends with the lovers killing themselves with pills and alcohol. After telling Dominik that this is how she wants to die, she begs him to get pills for her from the doctor.

At the behest of the psychiatrist, Dominik's parents write him a letter. He reads it to Sylwia, who finds it hilarious, before ripping the letter up. His parents decide that the doctor's methods will not cure Dominik before his final exams, so they demand the name of one that will simply give him drugs. When the new doctor arrives and interviews Dominik, Sylwia feeds him answers that will lead the doctor to give him the right pills. He follows the lines Sylwia gives him, but continually remarks about how no one should want to die, in a plea to make her reconsider her suicide.

As Dominik and Sylwia discuss where to meet and transfer the pills, Dominik's father rips out the router before their plans are set. Dominik panics, bouncing from threatening to kill his parents to begging his "Mummy" to help her son. His mother attempts to plug the cords back in, but his father stops her physically. Dominik bursts from his room and collapses. Later, he explains to his parents what The Suicide Room is. He tells them that the members are "like a family", and his parents ban him from returning, even to explain that he cannot come back.

Still wanting to see Sylwia, he takes the pills to the bar they had discussed. The bartender forces him to order something, which leads to Dominik drinking a large beer. He heads to the toilets and decides to dump the pills. After throwing a few handfuls into the toilet, Dominik takes one of the pills followed by two more handfuls. Dominik finds a couple who are kissing, and he starts filming them. They take the camera and begin filming Dominik's delirium. He mocks his parents and himself, laughing at his own drunken imitations. He returns to the bar and sees Sylwia waiting for him. They walk to the middle of the dance floor and kiss passionately. For the first time in the film, Dominik is happy.

Later at The Suicide Room, Sylwia is talking to her followers discussing Dominik's long absence from the group. They see Dominik's avatar walk up and learn that it is his mother using his account. She thanks them for being there and supporting her son, and announces that he has died. (The encounter at the bar is most likely a hallucination.) Sylwia rips the internet cord out from the wall and stumbles through her room, knocking over piles of garbage. She opens her door and goes outside for the first time in three years, bawling and screaming in the grass out front.

The movie ends with Dominik's parents at a ballet, though looking older and sitting in different places with separate companions, implying they are divorced. The drunk couple's footage of Dominik is interspersed with the ballet. It is revealed that, instead of returning to the bar, Dominik was screaming for his parents in the bathroom of the bar as he died from overdosing. He sticks his fingers down his throat in an attempt to throw up the pills but it is already too late. The video ends up on The Suicide Room wall.

Cast

Festivals and awards

In April 2011 the movie received the International Federation of Film Critics award at the International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera, in June of that year it won the Silver Lions award at the 36th Gdynia Film Festival and individual awards for sound and costumes for Bartosz Purkiewicz and Dorota Roqueoplo, respectively. Jakub Gierszał received the Audience Award and was nominated for the 2011 Zbyszek Cybulski Award for the role of Dominik. In November 2011 the movie won 3 Golden Duck statuettes, awarded by the readership of the Film magazine, in the categories: Best Cinematography, Best Script and Best Film. Jakub Gierszał also won the award for Best Actor.

Wins