OLDBOY

Part I

I finally went and saw OLDBOY. Lordy. I have to say, reviewers may have a point about the relevance (or lack thereof) of such sadomasochistic tendencies as revealed through this disturbingly engaging vengeful ride through the underbelly of Korea. Herein we get to see not merely a story of one innocent man who has been imprisoned for 15 years in a private room while he gets to witness news reports of his wife being murdered and himself getting slowly framed for it and then one day is suddenly released with a new set of clothes and enough money so that he may take out his revenge upon his torturous captor; but we slowly learn of the captor's own vengeance he is executing due to some excruciating twist of consciousness borne of having had an incestual affair with his sister . . . to tell you the truth, the exact reasoning behind this sadistic overseer of Oldboy's mindboggling degree of torture was somewhat lost on me -- I'm struggling to recall exactly what the reason Oldboy was culpable in the eyes of his torturer. I was trying to discern if the Oldboy wasn't even really guilty of anything, and it was all some twisted self-justification in the eyes of his nemesis, or what. I sympathize with the aggravation with movies nowadays that seem to be trying to outdo one another in terms of the old ultraviolence. Oldboy seems to have succeeded on at least several levels. Woe to the audience member who may have overlooked a crucial detail here or there in the explicit unfolding of these sadistic events, for I would expect them to be hard pressed to have to sit through it all again in order to ascertain what those exact details were precisely -- not a ride I feel I want to embark on again, necessarily. Although I can't say the film was entirely without thoughtful justifications for its raison d'etre; clever, certainly -- only the depth to which its depravity sinks makes the audience consider whether there is enough justification to warrant the plot material and unfolding of events depicted. Most certainly this is a movie not for the squeamish -- Oldboy seems, on the surface, to be a postmodern exercise for the hopelessly bored dilettante who would otherwise pass their time yawningly pulling the wings off flies. People have criticized SIN CITY as being a story with a "moral vacuum" -- these people would fare better directing such criticism to Oldboy than they would toward SIN CITY, which I thought was quite obviously and intentionally a "morality tale" with a very strong moral center. Oldboy on the other hand really does seem like a vacuous exercise in extremist morality-stripping to reveal at its heart a literal absence of any morality whatsoever in the center of any of its characters. In that respect I feel it may be considered a more thoughtful work of art than its audience may be capable of enduring sufficiently by film's end in order to appreciate it. Oldboy brings new dimensions to the difficult film and compounds this by seeming hellbent on contriving a situation so bleak and devoid of morality in every conceivable way that it probably succeeds in breaking through such old stereotypical movie-posturings in order to explore brand new territories in the realm of inhumane motivation; I say "compounds" this because after it is through making its depraved point, I don't know how many audience members' sense of normal morality would have sustained it through to the end. This is where the film sort of works against itself. It is almost an open invitation to sadomasochists everywhere, which puts the audience in a most uncomfortable spot, to say the least.

In the final analysis -- I cannot discredit the maker of Oldboy; rather, to the contrary. It is powerful filmmaking taken to a new level -- something that deserves credit in and of itself -- as well as an exploration of immorality taken to new depths. Having said that, what it reveals about both the filmmaker as well as the audience reactions must perforce be of extreme interest to psychology in general -- it just may not fare all that rewardingly insofar as a day at the movies goes. Oldboy is a powerful and disturbing work of art -- so successful in that endeavor in fact that it leaves the most jaded audience member with a bad taste in their mouth afterwards. Know of many other movies that can say that?


~Intermission~

I haven't been able to stop thinking about OLDBOY since I saw it Sunday.

It is filmmaking on a level so much more powerful than what is being delivered to us stateside, words fail...

...and yes, I have decided that I am going to have to sit through it again.

First I need to regain my composure.

Part II

The movie OLDBOY has been lingering like phosphorous impressions on the eyelids of my mind. Truly -- seldom have I seen a movie that so decidedly divides its audience into haters or appreciators. I believe it's because the movie works on the principle of an aesthetic. And that aesthetic seems to be the contrast between certain extremes of perception: UGLYness Vs. Beauty \ HATE vs Love \ Comedy vs Tragedy \ etc.

The way the filmmaker subtly injects the contrast of these elements thoroughly throughout is not something to be picked up on immediately, while viewing. For instance, the actor who played the main character: his face is a veritable canvas of seething emotion captured underneath -- emotion caught in the crossfire of pain, ugliness, desperation, and hatred. The little hope he experiences is devoured alive, just as the octopus he shoves ravenously down his throat. This is a classic scene easily misconstrued as pointless by western audiences who may not have considered that eating live seafood is common as a delicacy in the east. Yet it goes deeper than that -- I saw it as symbolizing his innate need to feel life itself as intimately as possible, after his 15 years of captivity. Aside from that, it wasn't any huge deal, that scene. Aesthetically it may have grossed many audience members out -- whereas I consider it to reflect a sort of repugnant beauty, a raw sensuality if you will, that works on many levels aesthetically. Regardless, I believe it is a classic cinematic moment destined to be long remembered, not just because of its novelty, but rather, because it is simply a powerful sequence of cinema.

As for the remainder of the film's relentless exegesis into the nature of vengeance itself, my main consideration about it is that this movie, like Sin City, is Not For Everyone.

But for those who would at least try and dissect further into its inner workings -- to go beyond the surface details of what might appear to be a rather flimsy setup for one man's revenge being swallowed up inside another's even greater revenge -- I think this film offers some true rewards.

The pitted skin of the protagonist's face and his wild, hoary hair conjure up tragic heroes such as King Lear or Macbeth, though you wouldn't necessarily realize that while watching the film. The Oedipal touches remain to give it that additional sense of Greek tragedy. The colours utilized to shoot the various scenes work very well -- and subtly -- towards establishing the film's relentless and edgy mood.

The scene where our hero hammers his way through a gang of a couple dozen guys was realized nicely as a single shot, and we get to see him continue unphased even after receiving a knife in the back. I know of many reviews that obviously completely missed the simple point of this scene -- many balk at the alleged unrealism of his having survived the knife wound, well that's where I balk at them -- he was merely driven so by rage that the knife in the back meant nothing. "Just a flesh wound", as they say. Oldboy is all about human endurance as well as how far humans are willing to go towards plumbing the depths of vengeance.

And the clincher -- I don't want to give it away for anyone so I'll make this as spoiler-free as I can -- the secret we learn of -- which is the motivation for our hero's captor to execute such a dizzying and cruel degree of vengeance -- let me just say that I realize many people were disappointed -- some shockingly so -- was the apparant triviality of that revelation. Well allow me to point out that I personally thought this was one of the most powerful aspects of the film -- that human beings can be driven to commit the most dire atrocities to one another -- all in the name of the most superficial, trivial things imagineable. So I had zero problem with that; I merely took it as yet another notch on the tightening screws of nihilism this film has set out to expose.

Although Oldboy may be thought of as "claptrap" and a "vacuous exercise in faux-Tarantinoism" by some reviewers, that doesn't change the fact that in my eyes, this film was a serious attempt by all involved to deliver the definitive revenge flick -- successfully, I might add -- which yes, is buying into a genre and perforce lends it more distinction as just another "movie" meant to entertain (rather than some self-important "film"), but I see that as yet another dimension of its intent to present the aesthetic of contrasts.