Chan -wook Park (Director)
What's in a name? With a title like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and knowing that the film is directed by the same Koren director that gave us the wonderful Oldboy, I expected a sick, twisted tale of...well...vengeance. What I got was a meditative melodrama with small bursts of gore and exploitation.
Sympathy is the first film in Park's "Vengeance Trilogy". It is the story of a mute boy that attempts to sell his kidney on the black market in attempt to save his sister how has diabetes and needs a kidney replacement. When that backfires they are forced to abduct the daughter of a former boss. This also doesn't go as planed and leads to unfortunate circumstances for everyone involved.
Let me start by talking about what I liked. The visuals were impressive, but they did seem a little self important or at least a little too"showy". There were no bad performances, but that is really difficult to judge with such bizarre subject matter and narrative structure. I suppose I respect the films ambition, even if in my opinion it's execution didn't match. Unfortunately that is about all the positive things I can say about the movie.
If you haven't noticed I don't watch a ton of abstract, surreal films. I have trouble connecting with surrealism. Metaphor I am all over. Surrealism rarely impresses me. To me, with surrealism, it is all about execution. I love the films of David Lynch and you don't get much more surreal than him. But in his movies he provides enough reality to ground his films then subverts that with his surreal visions. Even in a movie like Eraserhead, which is totally non-narrative, his execution of whatever story he is trying to tell is so profound that I find myself drawn in.
With Mr Vengeance that allure isn't there. As the movies opens I thought I was going to be told a story along the lines of last years Mother. Another Korean film, this one from Joon-ho Bong. That was an atmospheric tale of mystery and intrigue. Mr Vengeance's story is so convoluted and sideways that it took me completely out of any momentum that is was building.
First off, there is no reason for the protagonist to be mute. It neither hindered nor helped his situation. A mute character is a wonderful idea that you could apply all sorts of visual and audible techniques to represent his perspective and struggles (Look at The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Then there is the story. Mad props for attempting to tell such a lush and expansive story. And props for trying to do it in such a creative way. But the cross cutting and tweaking of the chronology got me totally lost. I don't want to sound racist here in any way, but the woman playing the mute's sister and the woman playing his girlfriend looked very similar to me and I had trouble distinguishing them a part. This is only made more difficult when one might be coming back from the dead and interacting with him.
When the violence does take place it is vicious and visceral. But I didn't feel like the movie had earned it yet. It wasn't building up to it. The killing and maiming seemed like it was just there for the shock value. It's like here is this sweet, quiet Merchant-Ivory production and then BAM, someone starts slicing their own abdomen with a straight razor. The violence did nothing to advance the story.
This was a real disappointment for me. The second film in the trilogy is Oldboy. A great example of beautiful pictures of terrible horrors all generated from a sick, perverted story. What makes the story of Oldboy so haunting is that if you allow for a little excess, you can totally see yourself being put into the protagonists place and once you had been pushed off the edge of madness, maybe even acting like him.
I still plan to see the 3rd film, Lady Vengeance. Let's hope Park leans more towards his 2nd film than his first. I give Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance ★★.
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