Following up on my Korean week, I return to one of the most lauded of recent works from that country, by prolific filmmaker Kim Ki-duk. It finds an almost spiritual register to deal with themes of dislocation and abuse, while also running at under 90 minutes.
I’m not quite sure how to feel about this film, but one thing I think is clear is that it lays out a space somewhere to the side of reality — maybe one that’s surreal, maybe one that’s imaginary or rather I should say mythical (there’s certainly a sort of folkloric undertow to the whole concept). At the heart of the story is a wife (Lee Seung-yeon) abused by her husband who tries to run away from him, and the attachment she forms to an itinerant young man (Jae Hee), neither of whom speaks (the wife or the man). He moves from home to home on a motorcycle, posting flyers over their locks so as to identify which aren’t being occupied when he returns later, and who then breaks into the homes to spend the night and eat their food, while mending broken items and doing the washing. At this point, it seems fairly clear — for such people don’t really exist except in stories like this — that he’s somehow other-worldly, though I suppose I could just as easily label him a plot device. The point is, there’s something magical about his presence, which allows the wife to hope for a better future even as she finds herself stuck with this horrible man she’s married to, and the dynamic between the three of them makes the ending rather a melancholy one, even as it is lift up by the promise of love, however spectral it might be. The lack of dialogue between the leads means the film never quite has to explain itself in so many words, leaving it an enigma, like these characters.
CREDITS
Director/Writer Kim Ki-duk 김기덕; Cinematographer Jang Seong-back 장성백; Starring Jae Hee 재희, Lee Seung-yeon 이승연; Length 88 minutes.
Seen at home (DVD), London, Monday 23 September 2019.
filmcentric 