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That's the best reasonable explanations I have read so far about the film. Thanks a lot V for putting everything in so simple but effectively.
Anyway, let's try to see the matter in a bit hypothetical or symbolic way. The thing is in a somewhat multi layered modern day cultural scenario here existence becomes like a structured & scheduled module designed by the society & family for a particular age group of young people. Does everything else around them are the ultimate means of defining their way of life? Does every relationship they have or bound by the family or social groups really delivering the worth of value that supposed to? These revelations are coming through as their self detachments from the society & family generated by the generation gaps and dependence on or backdrops of technological advancements in everyday & way of lives causing frustration, confusion or disbelief regarding finding a meaning of their identity in the society & family.
Sono painted here a enigmatic & symbolic representation of his key theme: a dis-connected reality of communication between young people and adults that is being fueled by online social networking and by the distortion provided by media via the power of pop culture. The ultimate truth here for the young generation – the kids – feel that adults have become too smug and contented, that they have lost the bond that makes them compassionate to those around, and have become removed from their own children. The authorities and the educators have almost lost the upper hand. In a society where most people are too busy with themselves to the extent that they have lost touch with others, thereby losing touch with themselves as well, suicide is one rational way out of it. It is its finality that helps (for a brief moment) the participants to feel human, to be really together by joining in death. Even for people who kill themselves in isolation, there is the sense of belonging to a wider suicide circle. Characteristically, none of them make any attempt to communicate with the outside world, none of them really make an effort to let someone save them because they reject what this salvation would imply: a return to the anonymity of a world overloaded by communications.
The songs of the Dessart also hold some key info. Dessart sings about finding a place to fit in this world. There's a place for all of us, they say. But in fact this is the irony: the way to fit is only through reconnecting with oneself. For people, who are social animals, this should mean reconnecting with others. But they don't and they are therefore doomed. When the boy on the phone asks Kuroda whether he is connected with himself, his voice is then replaced by a girl who asks why Kuroda could not feel the others' pain as he would feel his own. That is the essence of reconnecting with one's own self: re-establishing proper links with others. But he was detached even from his own family; he did not really feel even their agony. When his daughter shows up drenched in blood behind him, he does not detect the problem until he sees it with his eyes, by which time it is too late. Or the family where the mother slices herself is cooking in the kitchen while the rest are sitting in the living room.
And yes, Mitsuko says that she IS connected with herself, that’s why didn’t eventually go for the suicide but then why she let her skin being lathed off? She supports the whole cause, has belief in this concept but she eventually finds a meaning to live & value her life again...as Dessart’s last song in the movie…”As We go…we’ll forget the pain…we’ll find life again.”
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