Worst Kidnapper Ever:

[from toothpaste for dinner]

Even though I'd already seen it (recently :star::star::star::star::star:), I convinced Kurt and Sam to join me to see Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance at the NuArt.

The film has been getting some really bad reviews as critics (wrongly) attack the film for being violent merely for shock value. Entertainment Weekly rants that "the hideousness serves no dramatic purpose" but I totally disagree.

First off, most of the violent acts in Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance appear OFF-SCREEN, ala the ear-severing torture scene in Reservoir Dogs, or are obscured from the audience's view. By cutting away from the violent act itself, director Park Chan-wook forces his audience to face the consequences of that violent action head on. We don't actually see Ryu stick a screwdriver in a black-marketeer's neck, but we do indeed see it in all its blood-spurting glory when the badguy pulls the screwdriver out of his throat, but only after we see the terror in his eyes as he realizes that he's going to die.

Whereas most kidnapping / revenge films build their tension upon the action-packed drama of solving a mystery, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance is all about the motivations and consequences of the characters' actions, rather than actions themselves. Park Chan-wook doesn't even show us the pivotal kidnapping itself. He provides his characters with strong motivations for kidnapping a little girl and he portrays the inner emotional turmoil the characters face as they weigh the potential consequences of such a violent act. Any Hollywood film would have milked a kidnapping scene for all it's worth but Park doesn't even show it. Park simply cuts to the next scene where the kidnapping has already taken place and then proceeds to demostrate the horribly unexpected consequences of the act.

Park also withholds many of the facts about how the father unravels the mystery and finds his daughter's kidnappers. All that matters is that the father has more than enough reason to hunt them down, and that he is willing to face the consequences of his own equally horrible actions once he finds them. The "hideousness" that the EW critic claims "serves no dramatic purpose" is not about shock value at all, but rather, it serves as motivation for the father's own subsequent actions. While I concede that the act depicted is indeed hideous, it is oozing with emotional import. Park immediately cuts away from the bloody scalpel to gaze upon the father's face where he fixes his camera for the entire duration of the autopsy, because the autopsy itself is not nearly as important as the father's emotional reaction to it. This hideous autopsy is the launchpad for his quest for vengeance. It hardens his heart and makes him capable of doing evil things. He quickly becomes so desensitized to blood and guts that he actually yawns while watching another autopsy, because this time it's the rotting corpse a kidnapper.

Clearly there is nothing "flamboyant" about Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (as the EW review suggests). There is no hero of the film. Every character has sympathetic movitations for committing evil acts, but sympathy does not justify vengeance, and Park Chan-wook punishes his characters severely for their misdeeds.

Onion AV club review:
http://avclub.com/content/node/25634
(this is the best review I've read so far)

--------------------
Current Mood: )-o Tired
Currently listening to: Avalon Original Soundtrack
by Kenji Kawai