What's so surprising with Battle Royale, given its reputation and especially its pitch, is how many positive examples of humanity Fukasaku actually gives us. The film is full of quiet moments of cooperation, love, help... (This might explain why I don't find the "villain" who joins in the game for the killing that convincing. He acts like an invincible zombie more than any thing else, unlike the other two "monstrous" characters of the film, Mitsuko and Kitano). What makes it all the more poignant is how easily those are destroyed by the children themselves when they internalize the dynamics of adults bent on setting all forms of rebellion against each other. This means not only a despairing outlook in which rebellion becomes something that feeds into the plans of power, but also, more hopefully, a vision of simple humanity lending a hand to others as the most basic but most essential act of resistance.
And the ending is one of the great puzzles of modern cinema.
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