(As part of a new series, we will be covering special screenings organized by the Singapore Film Society.)
Kim Ki-duk is,
and has been since the start of his career, a polarizing figure in Korean cinema.
To his detractors, he is considered an enfant terrible, prone to employing the
same provocative gimmicks repeatedly in his films; to his most ardent supporters, he’s
one of Korea’s most talented auteurs.
Pieta, which won the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival, contains everything that his haters hate about
his films; those less inclined to be offended by his calculated shock tactics –
animal cruelty, excessive violence - may find it, as with many of his other
films, unnerving but reinvigorating at the same time.
We are swiftly
introduced to Kang-do (Lee Jung-jin), a merciless runner for a moneylender, who
spends his days sadistically going around town maiming people who cannot pay up
their ridiculously high interest rates, so that they can claim their health
insurance and clear their debts.
Kang-do is a person of
few words, and a man of fewer emotions. He goes around like a dark plague
sucking the joy out of the people he comes in contact with. One day, Mi-son (Jo
Min-soo) shows up claiming to be Kang-do’s mother who abandoned him at birth. He
of course dismisses her as a nutjob – who wouldn’t? – and he gets more
frustrated with her as she continues to follow him everywhere he goes. At one
point, she even barges into his house to clean his dishes.
After much effort,
Mi-son finally breaks down Kang-do’s defences, and he starts to acknowledge
her, but not before doing all sorts of humiliating things on her. Her
unwavering belief in and maternal kindness starts to thaw Kang-do’s icy heart,
and his conscience awakens as a result.
The first half of the
film is truly gripping and intriguing. And it has something to say: all the hand-maiming
and leg smashing inflicted by Kang-do on the blue-collar workers is a
thinly-veiled metaphor for the way the industrial working class are being trampled
cruelly over by Capitalism.
But as we go on to the
later parts of the film, it starts meandering into melodramatic territory,
devolving into a standard revenge flick which, don’t get me wrong, is still
helluva suspenseful and riveting to watch. One or two of the shocking scenes
later on in the film, however, do come across as empty provocations, unlike the way the
earlier acts of violence seemed to serve a clear message. Fortunately, though the film is not short on violence, a lot of it is elided; the pain of the victims is heard but not seen.
It’s all good. Kim may
be liberal with the ickiness, but stick through to the end and he offers something
close to redemption, a genuine form of grace.
Pieta will be screening on the 20th and 21st of July at
Cathay Cineleisure Orchard.
Kim Ki-duk’s Arirang, a documentary film, will be
screening on the 27th and 28th , 7.30pm, at The Arts House.