Bedevilled

A big hit at many 2010 film festivals, such as Cannes and Fantastic Fest, Jang Cheol-so’s film was always likely to achieve a DVD release in the UK. The director garnered a number of awards for his work on the movie – so having missed it at the cinema, is it worth hunting down a copy to watch at home?

Hae-won (Ji Seong-won) works in a bank in Seoul. After witnessing a violent crime, she is threatened and intimidated by a group of youths until she agrees not to testify. Frightened and angry, she returns to her office where she vents her frustration on an elderly customer. Her manager gives her little option but to take an enforced holiday, and given her state of mind, she opts on a restorative trip to visit her childhood friend on a nearby island.

Fifteen years after her last visit, Hae-won returns to Moo-do Island – the place her grandfather lived, and where she struck up a friendship with local girl Bok-nam (Seo Yeong-hee). Although her childhood friend is delighted to see her, it quickly becomes apparent that the rest of the small island community are not nearly so keen.

As the plot unfurls, it becomes increasingly clear why the other islanders are worried by Hae-won’s presence – it transpires that Bok-nam is being treated as little more than a glorified slave, punch bag and plaything. As the threat to her safety grows, so does the likelihood that she’ll seek retribution…

The opening scenes of the film are dispassionate and clinical. Concentrating solely on Hae-won’s reasons for seeking solace on Moo-do island presents the audience with a pretty dislikeable character. She’s cold, irritable and cowardly – not attributes an audience readily warms to. And so it proves. As she arrives on the island to outright hostility, it’s impossible to feel any sympathy for her, and this is a major flaw in the film – although it does raise the possibility that she will somehow redeem herself.

As the two female leads rekindle their friendship, we are slowly introduced to the idea that all is not well. It seems that other than an elderly and infirm man, the only other male characters on the island are Bok-nam’s husband, Man-jong, and his slack-jawed, mute brother. Their sneery indifference is threatening in itself, but they quickly reveal themselves to be even more worrisome.

It’s quickly established that the two are dangerous, immoral and violent. One particularly gruelling scene sees Man-jong’s brother having sex with Bok-nam. The idea in itself is repellent, but it’s also well shot in terms of creating a sense of violence and menace. He roughly forces himself upon her, and the visceral sex – filmed in a number of close-ups – makes extremely uncomfortable viewing.

Similarly, a sex-scene between Man-jong and a prostitute he’s had delivered to the island is a hard scene to watch. It’s extremely rough and misogynistic – and ultimately poignant, as the director cuts between shots of Man-jong (Park Jung-hak) forcing the prostitute to perform oral sex on him with shots of Bok-nam quietly eating her supper outside the room with the sounds of their meeting clearly audible.

Things become even bleaker as Bok-nam is repeatedly beaten, spat upon and insulted. When her young daughter becomes involved, things become even grimmer. Although never stated explicitly, it seems likely that she’s being groomed by the adult males – and perhaps even sexually abused. It’s subtly played by all concerned, but unfortunately, it’s arguably the last example of any tact being displayed.

It’s inevitable that the sexual (and possibly child) abuse and violence will have dire consequences, and so it proves as Bok-nam finally snaps. It’s an utterly predictable reaction and it’s filmed in an utterly predictable fashion. To say too much would be to give away the plot, but suffice to say that there is nothing on display which hasn’t been seen a million times before.

It’s a shame the story lapses into familiarity, as prior to Bok-nam ‘breaking’, the film was a much more interesting prospect. Although it’s almost relentlessly bleak, there were definite shades of The Wicker Man, as the sinister island community closed ranks against the interloper from outside.

Sadly, the character of Hae-won seems to serve merely as a device to illustrate the attitude of the islanders to outsiders. Once their attitude is established, she seems to disappear from the story altogether, but for a scene in which she is drugged and almost raped. She’s a peripheral character until the very end of the film, where she suddenly re-emerges – to the apparent benefit of nobody. A more unforgiving director or editor could probably removed her from the film altogether with very little impact on the overall feel of the movie.

Like Hae-won, the final act of the film completely outstays its welcome. It lapses into the worst kind of lazy cliché, and attempts to answer far too many questions. There would have been far more value in leaving some things unsaid or unanswered rather than trying to wrap everything up so neatly.

Bedevilled has moments of interest and a fine central performance from Seo Yeong-hee, but ultimately, the vast majority of the characters are one-dimensional and completely dislikeable. With judicious editing, there’s a decent film lurking in here somewhere, but as it stands, it’s bloated, flabby and predictable. Jang Cheol-so will have learned plenty of lessons from his directorial debut.

Oldboy

Park Chan-wook’s extreme thriller courted controversy on its cinematic release largely due to the brutality of its violence and a particularly stomach churning scene featuring an octopus. Nonetheless, it took the Grand Prize at Cannes and went on to widespread success.

Oldboy focuses on Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), a man inexplicably kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years. Upon his release, he is provided with a wallet full of cash and a mobile phone. A mysterious caller invites him to figure out the reason behind his detainment. A girl appears and promises to help him, and thus begins a brutal quest for answers… and revenge.

When Dae-su comes to meet his captor, a game is proposed: if he can discover the cause for his imprisonment, his kidnapper will commit suicide. If he is unsuccessful within five days, the girl will be killed…

Immediately, the film puts the audience at the heart of the action. We meet Dae-su at the police station where he is being held on a charge of drunk and disorderly. Handheld cameras sway unsteadily around the protagonist, positioning the viewer in the same queasy world as the character. This claustrophobic intensity increases still further as Dae-su is plucked from the streets of Tokyo and incarcerated in his locked bedsit. Here, the camera pans around him in a hallucinatory scene where ants burst from his flesh. Although the audience is not explicitly asked to side with Dae-su, it’s difficult not to feel some sympathy for him as he goes stir-crazy pondering his fate – and what has caused his current predicament.

That this is achieved despite his obnoxious behaviour in the police station begs the question, “Why?” Possibly the answer to this is that Dae-su has been the focus of the film throughout. By keeping him in the centre of the action, and maintaining such close proximity to the lead character, the audience seems to have little choice but to empathise – despite the fact that as a character he is far from likeable. As the film progresses, it’s easy to see why one of the images flashed on Dae-su’s television is that of Frankenstein’s monster.

The physical transformation of Dae-su, which takes place over the course of his captivity, is enormous. As well as the home-made tattoos and plethora of scars adorning his body, Choi Min-sik manages to imbue his character with a ragged anguish, which seems live in every crease and wrinkle of his face. The shoddy black hair framing his expressive face more than hints at the element of insanity that will be necessary for him to complete his vengeful mission. It’s quite a performance.

The scene which caused so much controversy occurs in a sushi restaurant. Having made the acquaintance of young female chef who will assist him in uncovering his personal mystery, he orders and eats a live octopus. We see the creature wriggling, its tentacles snaking around his mouth and into his nose as Dae-su presumably makes a statement about what he is capable of. Ordinarily the BBFC would never pass a film in this country which shows genuine animal cruelty, so the fact that the scene remained uncut in Britain (and that the actor himself admitted that four octopi died in filming it) was both unprecedented and understandably divisive. As a demonstration of desperation, it works amply on behalf of the character and a filmmaker who must have revelled in the publicity.

There are some wonderful set-pieces as violent revenge is wreaked – often with either end of a claw hammer. One scene in particular is epic in its scope. Dae-su is faced with a corridor of tool wielding attackers yet emerges victorious, albeit bloodied and bruised, after a masterfully choreographed fight sequence shot in one impressive take as the camera tracks the action left and right.

In the midst of graphically depicted violence lurks the villain of the piece. He’s an almost pantomime presence, from his mannered demeanour and platinum blonde bodyguard to his implausible disability: despite his youthfulness he is fitted with a remote-controlled pacemaker with which he can end his own life whenever he chooses. The mastermind behind the whole plot holds the aces due to his ability eliminate himself from the storyline, thus leaving Dae-su without the answers he craves.

The second half of the film is more formulaic than the first, but does not fall into the trap of becoming predictable thanks to the romance between Dae-su and Mido, the sushi chef. This beguiling relationship forms the heart of the film, and there are definite echoes of Luc Besson’s Leon in the interplay between the damaged anti-hero and the young girl – a mutual dependency which cannot be fully explained yet is touching in its tenderness.

The denouement is unexpectedly low key given the high octane way the film opens, but the languid unravelling of the plot has a nasty sting in the tail. It’s difficult to know where the audience is supposed to have sympathy in this morally murky world, and Dae-su’s passivity seems to be a deliberate part of the opaque but slightly muddled ending to a thought provoking and visually arresting piece of work.

This is a visceral yet stylish film which succeeds in presenting morally ambiguous characters and letting the audience make up their own minds. Unfortunately, the strength of the visuals cannot carry the relative weakness of the storyline as far as the end credits.