a review of 自杀专卖店

When I heard of an animated movie about a shop that sells suicide tools, directed by Patrice Leconte — the man responsible for Le Mari De la Coiffeuse, one of my all-time favorite movies — I was quite eager to see it. The film takes off reasonably promising. The atmosphere is pleasantly Burtonesque and the humor deliciously black. There's nothing wrong with the choice to go for 2D animation, but I had trouble appreciating the drawing style, character designs and the limited animation. This made it difficult to emotionally relate to the characters. I'm also a bit allergic to musicals, and there was too much singing in The Suicide Shop. Then there's the plot development. As the predominantly depressing film nears the end it suddenly explodes into so much 'happy happy joy joy' that you feel confused about which part of the movie is meant to be the ironic part.