The International Writers Magazine: Movies and DVD notes

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A Bittersweet Life (2005) Written and Directed by Ji-woon Kim S. Korean • Robert Cottingham A Bittersweet Life opens with a gorgeous black and white shot of a willow tree tossing in the wind. As colour slowly bleeds into the shot, we hear a voiceover by the main character Sun-Woo; ‘On a clear Spring day, a disciple looked at some branches blowing in the wind, and asked, ‘master, is it the branches that are moving, or the wind? To which he replies, ‘That which moves is neither the branches nor the wind, but your heart and mind.’’ Such a lyrically philosophical opening would seem at odds with this bleak story of vengeance and betrayal. But the film asks the question of what happens when a man who has never flinched from violence starts to question his actions and considers that there may be an alternative life for him in the form of a pretty cellist.

After a bravura sequence which sees Sun Woo take out several members of a rival gang, but only after he has finished eating his chocolate pudding, his gangster boss outlines a job for him. As he is going away for a few days, he wants someone to watch over his young girlfriend, whom he suspects of cheating on him. As his partner of seven years, such a job is given to Woo because Kang trusts him more than anyone else. After finding evidence that the girl has indeed been untrue, Woo finds himself unable to carry out Kang’s orders, which had been to execute her, had his worst fears been confirmed. This is after Woo has witnessed her playing Schubert’s Romance, and has glimpsed her bare feet, proving that the director is some kind of a foot fetishist.

Having betrayed his boss, Woo is forced to go into hiding, not only from the gang with whom he has killed and caroused with for the past seven years, but from the rival gang, who are mad at him for wiping out several of their goons. After a terrifying sequence in which Woo is buried alive, only to be saved by heavy rainwater, Woo takes revenge. With an arsenal of weapons, he vows to eliminate his enemies one by one, the only way he can exorcise them from his mind and find his salvation.

Because of the film’s aesthetic of agony, comparisons will no doubt be made with Oldboy, another nihilistic Korean flick, which posits that life is all about suffering. That may seem too much for some people. But to everyone else, this is classy and unrelenting film that is the real deal.

Worth mentioning is the sheer visual detail of the film. I particularly liked the way Shin Min-Ah’s home is decorated, and how it contrasts with the cold minimalism of Sun Woo’s apartment. And the ending, which shows Woo shadow boxing in front of a pane glass window, is simply a revelation.

© Robert Cottingham May 2006
robecottingham@yahoo.co.uk

DVD NOTES May 2006

5X2 François OZON
I must confess I’ve never got on well with the works of Ozon. His films always seemed too preconceived and stagy for my tasates. They always sound great on paper, but on film, they tend to lose something in the execution. I quite liked 8 women, which brought together the grandes dames of French Cinema, but Swimming Pool, his most recent, was too contrived to be truly enjoyable, although it contained one of the sexiest sights of last year, in a bare Ludivine Signeur sunbathing.

I liked 5X2 better, because the story follows the characters, rather than the other way around. The film uses a reverse chronology structure to tell the marriage of Gilles and Marion in five scenes. At the beginning, they are in a divorce counsel room, and at the end we see how they met. In between, we see them have a son, engage in extramarital affairs, marry and finally break apart, although not in that particular order. The film is good on characterisation, but the structure of the film has the effect of lessening the film’s emotional impact. For instance, its hard for us to believe that the couple can ever be truly happy when we’ve already seen them divorced, and he force himself on her, in the first ten minutes. Also, Ozon gives us no clues as to who might be responsible for their marriage breaking down. I thought that they were both equal. Even when Marion kissed a stranger on her wedding night, I felt that she did it to prove that she loved her husband, as though in a sense it reinforced her love for him. The film ends with a sunlit beach, and the two lovers (as they are at this point), walking along it. It brings to mind the famous adage that what people want from a film is a tragedy with a happy ending. And then some.

Twenty-Nine Palms Bruno Dumont
Something must be going wrong in French Cinema when even distinguished auteurs like Dumont are making films in America with American actors to boot. At first I as was reminded of Paris Texas, another film made by an émigré director about people lost in the great American wilderness.
To whit, David, a photographer location hunting for his next shoot and his girlfriend Katia, out of work, take an RV on tour to find the famous Twenty Nine Palms. They are in love with each other, but we never find out why. They carry out the minutae of human existence – eating, sleeping, making love. The abscence of a shared language – she speaks only French and he English, complicates their relationship. He is controlling and manipulative, she passive and withdrawn. An air of unseen menace hangs over the film, until finally, they are raped and murdered. Dumont uses long, slow takes and slows the pace right down so that we feel we are sleepwalking, stuck in a nightmare from which we cannot awake. The film suspense comes from the fact that nothing much happens, and when it does, we are shocked, even though the first frames indicate that all is not well in their world.

Like, Irreversible, Twenty Nine Palms asks us to confront our worst nightmare and forces us to respond neither emotionally or mentally, but with the totality of our being.

I was surprised to learn that both lead actors were unknowns until this film, which should make them bigger and better known. I liked her a lot, whereas I thought he was cruel and bullying, part Patrick Bateman, part Jason Patric from Your Friends and Neighbors. What she sees in him is anyone’s guess.

© Robert Cottingham May 2006
robecottingham@yahoo.co.uk

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