Bijou

When fifteen-year-old Scott Byers decides to bring a camcorder to school, none of his schoolmates ever imagined what is to come. Only Scott's five closest friends and followers have the insight on his master plan. He is on a quest for the ultimate thrill, as he documents the day's event, anticipating the grand finale; Scott plans to commit suicide on camera. His friends become fascinated by his idea and decide to join the action for various reasons. The pull behind their leader and set out to make history.

The rush is instantaneous. Emotions run wild. Pressure mounts as shocking details are revealed. The search for the final adventure takes an unexpected turn down a dark road. This journey turns out to be much more than what Scott and his friends had ever anticipated.


(I'll continue from that point on...with more detail...)

Majandra's character "Trudi" is one of the teens that decide Scott's suicide idea is a good one and joins in. Four other of his close friends do, too, but one of them has a screw loose. They all have video cameras to record their last day in school and such but the insane guy got beat up by a jock and suddenly he shows up with a kill list. The rest find out in the editing room (they decide to edit their tapes together) and he tells them it was just a joke so they'd leave him alone.

Trudi is probably the only one with the most valid reason for killing herself, if there was one. She grew up in a broken home, her father physically abused her and her mom started sleeping with her ex-boyfriend. She's naturally a cynic and she sees this as a real opportunity to leave it all behind. The first half of the movie is played in light, they're all high on this thrill of it being their last day and screw around. They decide to spend the night in the audiovisuals room so they all dress in black and record it from beginning to end, they're all having a good time. Until they find out the psycho guy is hiding a secret tape from them, one made earlier by he and refuses to give up. Scott, the one who started it all but meant only for him, finds it and plays it for everyone before the psycho could stop him.

Turns out he raped and killed a little girl earlier that day in a supermarket bathroom. They all decide right then that it's gone too far (ya think?) and decide to turn him in first thing in the morning. They make him believe they're still going through with the group suicide but what they don't know is that he has a gun. He wakes before everyone and gets one of the guys to film him as he starts shooting (all in gory in your face detail, too) kids in the hall...ones randomly and ones on his list. They've taken some stuff from the Columbine story because he asks one of the girls if they believe in God...she answers 'yes' and he shoots her. At this point, half the school is cleared because of the first few shots and the scenes flash from the running out of the school to the psycho guy looking for the jock who beat him up. (blood bath, btw. total and utter blood bath)

We go back to the audio visuals room where everyone woke from the shots, Scott runs off to stop psycho guy and Trudi is crying in a corner collecting a bottle full of pills to swallow, she's crying and says she can't take it. It's assumed she takes them and dies, as that's her last scene.

Scott finds psycho holding a gun to the jock's head in the gym taunting him and asking him why he's crying, Scott tell psycho to shoot him instead of jock, psycho complies and shoots Scott a few times in the chest. Not enough to die right then but enough to put him down. He still shoots jock and drags Scott off to the computer room to transfer the stuff on the tape to the internet so everyone could see their 'project' unedited. He makes a speech about how screwed up everyone is and how no one pays attention to the teenagers and they should look at him as a hero for opening their eyes. He then shoots himself.

Scott, with a few breaths left in him, tells the camera that the whole reason he wanted to do this was because he was bored. There wasn't any meaning behind it, he had nothing better to do. He's crying and telling the camera that it's not until you're actually dying that you realise how much you want to live.

The police finally find the room they're in but it's too late, they're both dead.

The camera zooms out to see a staticy television and to show Scott's mother watching it...gasping out tears and wailing.

Credits roll.

Let me just add that throughout the whole movie, the scenes are shot from their camcorders and back to regular screen, they go from each person's point of view to build the story, which I thought was incredibly creative and very cool.


Aside from the whole pedophile part where I automatically closed my eyes and ears, it was an incredible eye-opener. Majandra did a fantastic job, she made the character so believable (they all did, really) and true that I totally forgot that this was the same girl who played Maria DeLuca. Hell, I didn't even see Majandra at this point. She gets into these characters with her heart and soul, her timing was spot on and cast's chemistry was unbelievable. Yeah, not bias here.

Let me just say that the 'museum' they showed it in wasn't your day-to-day museum, this was the Coney Island Museum where they have their freak shows (electro-girl, hammer head, bendo-boy) so the room I was watching it in was set up with old benches and fold chairs with a screen hanging down where the stage is. I was the first person there...and the ONLY person there for about an hour into the movie when about two other people showed up.

That blew my mind. It was also kind of cool, though, because at the beginning the dudes who set it all up were in the next room watching it and came out to ask me if it was too loud. It was, so I kindly asked them to lower it a notch,

I met a friend of the guy who wrote the film at the end and she said she was just as shocked not a lot of people showed, it was about two hours long so I was there by myself (with the guys in the other room) for a good amount of time.

Here I was thinking I had to get there early enough for tickets, hah. I do hope that the other places they show this attracts more people, it's worth it and if you have a stomach for gore (just at the end) and can handle raw movies like this. It's not for the faint of heart at all. When they showed the mother at the end howling with pain...ugh, I'm surprised I didn't burst into tears.

So, first half of the movie? Morbidly funny. Second half? Getting kinda WTF. Third half? Watching a train wreck, you cannot believe what's going on and how MUCH they're showing you.

I wasn't expecting what I got at all. The good and the bad.