Pieta

Pieta Kim Ki-Duk was such a favorite director of mine. I loved every single one of his films, his silent leads, fish hooks and fishes and all the imagery etc. Well as it happens I still like Mr. Kim a lot. This film is not a fave of mine (I can't decide between The Island or Bad Guy right now) but it is a very good film none the less. He kind of lost me with Dream though, that one was kind of boring.

Firstly I had to check what Pieta meant. Now that I know it means "depiction of Virgin mourning for her son" the dvd cover makes more sense.

The story is a good and a painful one (as per almost all of Mr.Kim's films). The lead characters were chattier than usual and this was not an unwelcome change.  I aso like the critique of capitalism's effect on the lives of the poor. There is some sexual perversion, some violence but overall this ended up being a revenge film. I considerably perked up at this. And it was a good revenge too. Very effective.

The two leads are excellent but then again Mr.Kim is almost always good with actors (well except Jang Dong Gun that is, man that guy was overacting so much even my muscles ached while watching The Coast Guard - that is a good example when a star and an auteur do not cooperate well on screen) even though he does absolutely nothing to make them look even remotely presentable on screen.

Well my main problem with the film was a visual one. The male lead Lee Jung Jin and as you can clearly see below

 Photo credit NY Times

He had visible plastic surgery. Now I wouldn't have minded that much if the character was not a debt collector who actually maims the debtors unable to pay what they owe (it is an insurance scam of sorts). He really is not a man vain enough to spend much time in front of a mirror etc. So despite the fact that the performance was top notch, I just couldn't leave the plastic enhancements behind.

Oh the plot: Kang Do has an empty life where he turns people into cripples during the day, buys live chickens, kille them in the bath room and boil them for dinner in the evening, weirdly masturbates in his sleep at night.
One day a strange women starts to stalk him claiming that she is his mother who is now regrets that she left him as soon as he was born. She asks for forgiveness and pesters him silently day and night. Well Kang do is actually not really a monster but a lonely man with not much sympathy for anything but he is not immune to motherly love (his "mother" loves him so much that she lets him have sex with her). So begins a tale of an elaborate revenge (not only scale of Old Boy revenge - which is the best revenge I have seen anywhere- but much better than most).

So all in all I liked the film but not really in love with it.