Ki-duk Kim built his career on films containing bizarre motifs that outline deeper layers of human nature. However, in some of his latest works the priorities have changed. Complex themes have become superficially elaborated frameworks within which a whole range of disturbing contents has been featured. So, in his film Amen (2011), we follow the story of rape (the director himself plays the rapist) to finally understand the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. In his latest work Moebius (2013), the castration of a minor reveals to us that the family goes through a crisis, while in Pietà-I (2012.) Kim teaches us that the obedience by the suffering of rape and humiliation may warm up even the coldest hearts. But this is not where the director stops; he gives to his film a politically involved prospective, as well, criticizing the capitalist system through the mutilation of the poor.
The debt collector Gang-Do (Jung-Jin Lee), fear and trembling of the neighborhood, totters through the overcrowded city suburb. He perambulates stuffy hovels of helpless debtors just following his orders. There, he mutilates them, remaining completely cold, in an ambiance filled with menacing machines that impose by themselves the variation in the choices of the ways to inflict lesions ... This established routine is disturbed by a mysterious woman Mi-Son (Jo Min- su) that abruptly enters into Gang-Do's life stating to be his mother. The son reacts to this information by raping her, as it wouldn't be okay to leave her non-raped – because in such a case the director would miss the strike combination of incest and rape! However, regardless of violence she was subjected to, Mi-Son offers unconditional love through which she gradually acquires confidence of her son.
Pietà has won the Golden Lion at Venice. The film has a really intriguing plot (although the South Korean revenge film patterns were entirely followed), as well as visual homogeneity in the representation of cold atmosphere and nauseating thematic. However, shock effect is here mostly to affect the audience, and Kim uses it artfully to cover the weaknesses of the film such as poorly dramaturgically elaborated theme of empathy. Its elaboration is so shallow that the director resorted to an awkward explanation of his work. We had to endure the final monologue of the female protagonist who in an outburst of pathos explains from alpha to omega motives of the film and its punch-line. Through the accentuation of flaws present in the character of victims (wimps, invertebrates, people with a lack of morals ...) he supports his misanthropic vision of life and thus calls into question the alleged message of the film and whether the motives of the director were indeed humanistic.
The debt collector Gang-Do (Jung-Jin Lee), fear and trembling of the neighborhood, totters through the overcrowded city suburb. He perambulates stuffy hovels of helpless debtors just following his orders. There, he mutilates them, remaining completely cold, in an ambiance filled with menacing machines that impose by themselves the variation in the choices of the ways to inflict lesions ... This established routine is disturbed by a mysterious woman Mi-Son (Jo Min- su) that abruptly enters into Gang-Do's life stating to be his mother. The son reacts to this information by raping her, as it wouldn't be okay to leave her non-raped – because in such a case the director would miss the strike combination of incest and rape! However, regardless of violence she was subjected to, Mi-Son offers unconditional love through which she gradually acquires confidence of her son.
Pietà has won the Golden Lion at Venice. The film has a really intriguing plot (although the South Korean revenge film patterns were entirely followed), as well as visual homogeneity in the representation of cold atmosphere and nauseating thematic. However, shock effect is here mostly to affect the audience, and Kim uses it artfully to cover the weaknesses of the film such as poorly dramaturgically elaborated theme of empathy. Its elaboration is so shallow that the director resorted to an awkward explanation of his work. We had to endure the final monologue of the female protagonist who in an outburst of pathos explains from alpha to omega motives of the film and its punch-line. Through the accentuation of flaws present in the character of victims (wimps, invertebrates, people with a lack of morals ...) he supports his misanthropic vision of life and thus calls into question the alleged message of the film and whether the motives of the director were indeed humanistic.