By: Briand Godfrey

Briand Godfrey — Fri, 13 May 2016 09:55:42 +0000

Hmmm…I just saw this film and not being any sort of hardcore Kim-Ki Duk or Korean cinema fan, I have to say it's the finest film I've seen this year out of a long film festival hopping run and cinema binge. Most reviews have focused on it's statement on capitalism, it's "poverty" cinema, it's disturbing violence, and the "plot" of the mother-son dynamics and how it plays expectations with the revenge genre – but this is all I've been reading in reviews on this film in the west, it's all people see of it and for that it and probably most of Mr. Kim's films will not be welcomed and celebrated at least for a while. Sure those elements are there to create a film, which in essence, is a tangible set of places, things, and themes you have to photograph but there is something much much more larger going on at hand with this story, something that can't be easily said with words, that hovers above the images. It leads up to an ending that pierces through all those social/tangible themes journalists can grasp on to. Ultimately it is about how we hurt each other in life, and what happens when something comes in and causes us to lose (or gain?) our soul – and the growth (or destruction) that it can do to someone who has lead a life of monotony and heartlessness. That's the best way I can describe it and it's still horrible sounding because I can't put it into words. I would just go see it. It's an experience not a movie. Which is why I did not even pay attention to the harsh camerawork, lack of "production design" and all these industrial elements and requirements of modern cinema's checklists. I don't think Kim was trying to be a master at those elements with this film, or even make perfect sense, or tell a "good story". There is something far more poetic and indescribable it achieves if you can let all those things go and watch it a second time. I feel as though most of the reviewers didn't even pay attention to the last 20 minutes of this film. Writing only about its obvious elements.

Comments on: Review: Kim Ki-Duk’s Golden Lion-Winning ‘Pieta’ Is A Bruising Mother-Son Relationship Drama That Ultimately Disappoints

By: Briand Godfrey