George Ghon comments on THE SKIN I LIVE IN

Art keeps you free.

George Ghon, fashion writer, stylist, editor of ALPHA magazine, and cinephile, comments on THE SKIN I LIVE IN.......

Pedro Almodóvar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN is a multi-faceted film, an experiment that combines the tradition of Greek drama with a modern, slightly surreal medical thriller. The central character, a brilliant Antonio Banderas as Robert Ledgard, is the contemporary equivalent to a doomed ancient king. He attempts to transcend his own human powers, plays god, and is bitterly punished for his hubris. He is an enormously talented surgeon that has pushed the boundaries in transplantology, scion of a wealthy family, and yet, his life is not a happy game. He tried to save his wife after she burned in a car crash, on the run with her lover. He tried to save his daughter, after the fragile girl got abused and raped in the scenic setting of a lush garden party. Both those women, for whom he had so much affection, took their own lives and found a sudden, unexpected death when jumping out through an open window. These bitter experiences, as well as his talent and money, make for an ambivalent character. On one hand brutal and powerful, but at the same time sensitive and almost loveable in his passion.

He finds his victim and, like Pygmalion, uses his skill to shape it into his perfect partner. In Ovid’s metamorphoses Venus grants the sculptor’s wish and the ivory statue becomes alive. In the Spanish town of Toledo, set in the year 2012, the surgeon also hopes for divine intervention. From the wall of his staircase lurks an oversized Venus d’Urbino, the renaissance painting originally conceived by Titian. It can (re-) ignite love and passion in its spectators, but it has also been seen as marriage picture, as object that was deliberately made to affirm and save the relationship of a couple. 

None other than recreating his lost love is Robert’s aim. But he reverts to dubious practises in order to achieve his goal, and fails miserably in the end. During the opening shots, we can see a beautiful, slightly androgynous girl practising Yoga in a locked room (Elena Anaya as Vera). Guarding her perfect body in a tightly fitted suit, she is completely shut off from the outside world. The only solace she can find, except from physical workout, is engaging with the art of Louise Bourgeois, which she learns through books coming up in a little elevator. She tears apart swatches of fabric and re-uses them to form little sculptures. 

First this seems unusual, but not utterly bizarre. Yet. The real story we only learn later in the film. It then becomes clear that Vera is searching for a new identity and delves into sculpture to overcome an existential angst that results from traumatic surgery. She is Robert’s chosen one, the one he experiments on and tries to find love for. By and by, she comes to terms with her fate and accepts the lover’s role, before finally encountering a reawakening reminder of her past. 

This movie deals with the big themes of classic tragedy, with love, loss, and redemption. Shot in beautiful locations and executed with superb cinematography, it is a feast for aesthetes. But the picture goes deeper than just touching the beautiful surface of things. It deals with the skin of bodies, but also affects the lives beneath it. There is a lot to consider about this new Almodóvar, no matter that the story might have its flaws. 

THE SKIN I LIVE IN played Cannes 2011 and was released in August in France, Ireland and the UK. It was released earlier this month in Spain, and is released today in the Czech Republic and Hungary. It played Toronto 2011 next week and opens in Russia and Poland. It opens on September 23rd in Argentina and Italy. It opens in Brazil and the US on October 14th and in Germany on October 20th. It opens in Hong Kong and Sweden on December 2nd.

Crimes Against Cinema: The Ten Most Piss-Poor Movies of 2007 OR Why Danny Dyer Should Be Tried as a Serial Offender

Piss-poor cinema is typically lazy, formulaic, badly produced and lacking in ambition or artistic integrity. In previous years, the chief aggressors were studio hacks pumping out weak franchises aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator. But in recent years, we've seen the co-option of the American independent cinema movement, with a certain style of "Sundance" movie feeling as jaded and derivative as the studio fodder it seeks to replace. Hands up all those sick of quirky characters, faux-naif camera-work and self-conscious music choices. So this year's Worst Of List eschews the usual commercial crap that harbours no ambition of greatness. Instead, we focus on movies that really were trying to be good but failed.

My first two picks are both low-budget British erotic revenge thrillers that reach for profundity but stumble into cheap exploitation. Both also star Cockney geezer Danny Dyer in performances that demonstrate his limited range. The first offender is STRAIGHTHEADS - in which a women is brutally raped by a couple of slack-jawed yokels in deepest darkest Worcestershire (from the look of it.) She turns into a psycho-killer and exacts a revenge that will be familiar to readers of Marlowe's Edward II. The second movie is called THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL. In this flick, a young man desensitised by popular culture and political violence brutally rapes and kills a random middle-class woman. We know this is meant to be a "serious" movie about "issues" because the psycho-teen rapist listens to classical music, just like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The problem is that neither film has the intellectual gravity of ORANGE or STRAW DOGS. As a result, they just feel like crass exploitation flicks.

The third film in this year's list is yet another low-budget British revenge film featuring Danny Dyer! The only slight difference with OUTLAW is that the pscho-revenge-killings are not prompted by rape. But everything else is depressingly familiar: from the incredible dialogue to the insufficient character delineation to the weak performances. Grim.

As we move away from the low-budget revenge thriller, you might think we'd be leaving territory besmirched by the inappropriately smirking face of cinema's equivalent of Victor Willis. You'd be wrong. Still, in fairness to Dyer, his typically one-note performance was by far not the worst thing about low-budget British comedy THE ALL TOGETHER. He was trumped by the arid wasteland where Comedy Used To Live.

Speaking of which, the fifth item on the list is, you guessed it, a low-budget British flick called MAGICIANS. I'm not sure how it happened but this flick took two of the funniest guys on British TV - Mitchell and Webb - and put them in a feature length film that was almost entirely devoid of laughs. There's a PhD for some poor film student in working out what goes wrong when TV comedians fail on the big screen.

Venturing outside of the UK, we had plenty of examples of formulaic American movies in the faux-naif genre. YEAR OF THE DOG is a case in point. Quirky characters up the wazoo; a cast-list stuffed with darlings of independent cinema; this film has Sundance ooozing from its pores. It's also faintly patronising toward its characters, unfunny and unable to engage its audiences in it protagonist's emotional crisis. These directors need to realise that if quirk is not balanced with genuine comedy, it's just irritating. Moreover, it's a barrier to the audience relating to the protagonist.

The seventh movie on the list proves that the Spirit of Sundance is infecting cinema as far away as New Zealand, and that Mitchell and Webb are not the only successful TV comedians to suffer an embarassingly laugh-free transition to the big screen. In EAGLE VERSUS SHARK, Jemaine Clement of the hysterically funny duo Flight of the Conchords plays a quirky geek who pisses off his long-suffering quirky geek girlfriend. Then he fights a disabled guy, which is quite funny. Then the movie ends. Weak beyond belief.

The eighth movie on my list is THE DARJEELING LIMITED. Wes Anderson is the director who can most clearly take credit for inventing the Sundance style, despite the fact that he actually makes studio films. But as his characters have become more wealthy and his reputation has become more august, his films have delivered diminishing returns. Where we had genuine emotions and love-able characters in BOTTLE ROCKET, we now have ever-more flowery production design and ever-more vacuous characters and thinner plots. I don't care about the characters in THE DARJEELING LIMITED. They are as indulged as this film is indulgent. I despair of Wes Anderson.

The ninth movie on my list is a genuine all-out fiasco called ANGEL. It's a French-produced melo-drama set in Edwardian Britian called Based on a sappy sub-Mills and Boon novel by Liz Taylor, the movie is about a wilful authoress who manipulates everyone around her. Director Francois Ozon will no doubt argue that the over-acting, absurd dialogue, fantastical costumes and sets, are all intentional. But a pastiche is interesting for only so long, and this film certainly does not sustain our interest. I only hope that talented actress Romola Garai's reputation survives.

Note that, despite their failure, I still have more respect for these nine movies than piss-poor studio films that don't even try to do anything different. A noble failure is better than a mediocre, banal auto-flick. Having said that, I can't help mention a string of uninspired shameless cash-ins from our friends in the West - namely HOSTEL PART II, HANNIBAL RISING, BECAUSE I SAID SO, GOAL 2 LIVING THE DREAM or the most piss-poor studio films of the year: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END and SPIDERMAN 3. Of all these movies, PIRATES 3 must take the biscuit as the example par excellence of all the traits that characterise flabby, over-busy franchise films. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I give you: Ikea Knightley's and Orloondo Bland's* wooden central performances; a plot so convoluted you could catch fish in it; the indulgence of Johnny Depp's ego; the inability of the screen-writers to stick the rules of the fantasy genre that they set up in the first film; the reliance on running and shouting rather than genuine chemistry between the romantic leads or genuine tension in the adventure story plot. *TM BBC Radio 5 Live, Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode on film.

Flaky ending aside, THE BRAVE ONE is pretty decent

THE BRAVE ONE is more intelligent and more patient than your average revenge thriller. Usually these flicks take a more or less explicit and malicious pleasure in the protagonist beating the crap out of the bad guy. THE BRAVE ONE distinguishes itself by not lingering over the violence at all. Jodie Foster plays a DJ whose fiance is killed by a bunch of thuggish happy-slappers and resorts to killing bad guys in an effort to regain control. The heart of the film is her relationship with the cop who is investigating the case. He's portrayed by Terrence Howard in yet another stand-out performance. The crux of the piece is whether or not Howard's character will have the fortitude to shop the women he knows is guilty of murdering people he knows are beyond the grasp of the justice system he believes in. The film oozes class. The performances are top notch; the camera-work is penetrating; the characters believable....that is, until the final reel. Still, despite the flaky ending, it's great to see the revenge thriller rescued from the trash-can.

THE BRAVE ONE played Toronto 2007 and is on release in the USA, Indonesia, the Philippines, Canada, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Spain, the UK, Slovenia and Denmark. It opens in Egypt, Australia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Finland, Iceland and Lithuania next weekend. It opens in Czech Republic and Hungary on October 18th, in Argentina on October 25th, in Japan, Slovakia and Brazil on November 2nd.

OUTLAW - The Return of Auto-Bean

OUTLAW is a piss-poor low-budget British revenge drama from the director of the infinitely better FOOTBALL FACTORY, Nick Love. Comparing it to similar movies in this genre, OUTLAW has none of the intelligence, black humour, sheer terror or narrative coherence of the brilliant DEAD MAN'S SHOES. Indeed, the best thing I can say about OUTLAW is that, as low-budget revenge dramas go, it's at least significantly better than STRAIGHTHEADS.

The production values are all fine. I liked the use of the Canary Wharf location and the film looks handsome enough despite being filmed on DV. But in every other sense it fails. The premise is fine: a bunch of men from different walks of life are united by their disappointment in the ability of the Criminal Justice system to avenge them and so become vigilantes. The problem is that the reasons for which these men turn to vigilante crime are weak in the majority of cases. A barrister's pregnant wife is killed by the local gang boss. A university student has been brutally beaten up for no reason by a bunch of vicious chavs. Fair enough motives so far. But the other vigilantes are there because they're getting picked on at work, their wife is having an affair or because they are plain nuts. Not a great start.

But even if we grant the screen-writer his original character motivations, he isn't consistent as to their motivations and actions as the movie progresses. Characters who feel nervous about stringing up a murdering paedophile one moment, feel quite happy to gun down innocent coppers the next. It makes no sense. Indeed, the ending is the most disapointing part of all: a movie that had just about maintained some tension and the mature feel of a thriller suddenly reverted to an immature, facile, motive-less gun-battle.

Perhaps the inconsistencies and insufficient character motivations in the plot are responsible for the weak performances from the likes of Sean Bean, Rupert Friend and Bob Hoskins. Danny Dyer has another opportunity to display his limited range with genuine dramatic material. It's a shame because he is a charming comedic actor: he is wasted here.

OUTLAW is on release in the UK.

Thoughts prompted by THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL

THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL is a film whose brave ambition and memorable cinematography are skewered by poor acting, crass socio-politics and insufficiently drawn characters.

The ambition lies in writer-director Thomas Clay's willingness to grapple with the big socio-political issues of our time in a manner that is brutally explicit and uncompromising. He sets his film in a desolate British sea-side town on the eve of the current Iraqi war. Teenagers hang around in town squares with nothing to do but swear, drink and wait for the rozzers to move them on. These scenes are shot with a spare, still beauty that belies the substance of the plot. Fuelled by Ecstasy from a newly released ex-con, they jump from mildly anti-social behaviour to gang rape and murder with a speed that undermines the movie's credibility, to my mind.

Other flaws range from the trivial to the profound. The acting is uneven, with a particularly amateurish, over-acted performance from Michael Howe as Jonathan Abbott. Danny Dyer - the only marquee name actor in the film - is largely wasted in this comic book self-parody of an ex-con geezer.

A more serious flaw is that the profound socio-political point that Thomas Clay is trying to make is rather wrong-headed in content and overly simplistic in the manner in which it is made. Clay wants to draw a parallel between the nihilism and amorality of the teenagers and the Iraqi war. But I rather think that they are two very different things: the difficulty with Blair and Bush was not so much casual nihilistic amorality as a well-thought out, well-intentioned, and yet still utterly vain, disingenuous and misapplied morality. But even if we grant Clay his moral parallel, the manner in which it is made is still crass - simply having a news item on the Iraqi war in the foreground of a gang rape. Hardly, a sophisticated take on the situation.

Perhaps Clay would argue that sophistication is besides the point - that his very aim is to be brutal, heavy-handed, and shocking to the point where even today's desensitised viewer will be affected. Hence the Kurbrickian contrast of classical music and explicitly shot, exploitative violence. He meant it to be exploitative, so that's okay then? My problem with this is that the final rape scene is so egregious as to be self-negating. I didn't feel disgust at how brutal society or war can be, or at how desensitised I had become. I felt appalled at the crass attempt to manipulate the audience and the fact that this explicit scene was serving no greater argument than the rather obvious: haven't we all gotten too used to casual violence?

THE GREAT ECSTASY OF ROBERT CARMICHAEL is available on DVD.

RED ROAD - powerful, intense Glasgow-set drama

RED ROAD is a powerful intense movie from first time feature-length writer-director Andrea Arnold. It focuses on a middle-aged woman living in contemporary Glasgow. She works as a CCTV operator - scrutinising footage of people walking passed shops and sitting in bus shelters. Her voyeurism slips into her private life by small steps - each recorded in this deliberately-paced, slow-building movie. The lack of orchestral score or staged lighting and hand-held camerawork adds to the feeling of claustrophobic realism. We are always looking at people on TV, or through windows and grilles. As the movie progresses, the motivations of the woman are slowly and subtly unfolded. Indeed, this is one of the movie's key pleasures and I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of the film by doing a conventional plot summary. Essentially, she starts following a man that she perceives to be linked to her past and a threat to the community. But her increasing obsession with the subject of her gaze means that she is simulataneously fascinated by and dependent on him - while also wanting to exorcise him from her community.

The success of RED ROAD rests on the director's patience with the material - drip-feeding the audience a little more information - a little more character motivation as the minutes unfold. It also rests on two stunning lead performances from Kate Dickie and Tony Curran - who tackle emotionally and physically brutal material. If there were any justice in the world - and if the Academy were a little less mawkish - Dickie would be receiving nominations.....

RED ROAD played Cannes were it won the Jury Prize. It also played Toronto and London. It is on release in the UK and opens in France on December 6th. It opens in the Netherlands on February 1st 2007.

Overlooked DVD of the month - A TALE OF TWO SISTERS/JANGHWA, HONGRYEON

This month's overlooked DVD is A TALE OF TWO SISTERS. It's a superb mind-bending movie from the South Korean director who made this year's stand-out gangster movie, A BITTERSWEET LIFE. In fairness, it's by far not a hidden jem in South East Asia - indeed in South Korea it's one of the highest grossing movies of all time. But it got a super-limited release in the UK and deserves a lot more recognition. So here goes....

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS is more of a psychological thriller than a typical horror movie, although it does contain flashes of gore and some truly frightening material. The movie is based on a truly Grimm fairy tale about two young sisters who go to live with their father and wicked stepmother in the countryside. Director Kim Jee-Woon knows how to scare an audience. He starts off with a scene is a sterile white room - perhaps an asylum. A girl is brought in. We cannot see her face and she will not respond to the doctor's questions or the photograph of a seemingly happy family. We then cut to the events of the story. The opening half hour has a slow, worryingly calm tone. The family move to the kind of claustrophic, colour-saturated countryside that evokes those menacing forests of Litte Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast. But then little cracks start to appear. One sister starts acting up with the stepmother. There are arguments followed by a macabre dinner party. The father withdraws into himself and the colour-coding becomes even more heightened. The strange occurences come thick and fast now. What really happened to the girls' mother? How wicked is the stepmother? Why are there sounds coming from beneath the floorboards and the kitchen sink?

The first time I watched this movie at the cinema I had really no clue what was going on and when I got some inkling near the end it was a complete mind-explosion. I had to go back and watch it again. It's that kind of movie. I've since watched it a couple more times and always pick up more about the story but also appreciate more the detailed and deliberate use of colour, props and editing. Upon reflection this movie reminds me of a complex elegant puzzle that gives great intellectual satisfaction once you've worked it out but also pleases aesthetically. Not to mention the blood-curdling horror!

So, as far as I am concerned, this is the best horror flick I've seen since THE SHINING - but then I really go for the psychological stuff. It's beautifully put together, satisfies on many levels and never gets old.

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS was released in South Korea in 2003 and in the US and UK in 2004. It is now available on DVD including a deluxe two disc set that features extensive interviews with cast and director and full audio commentaries. Apparently there is going to be a Hollywood remake released in 2008, but as the South Korean has vowed to avoid it like the plague I suggest you do likewise!

THE KING - Frustrating, inexplicable, strange....

THE KING is an odd movie to review. I cannot say that I enjoyed my viewing experience or that this is a coherent or compelling movie. And yet I am somewhat reluctant to dismiss it as a “bad movie” that you should avoid. The difficulty for me lies in the script. The story is pretty hackneyed. There is a preacher who lives with his wife, son and daughter in contemporary Corpus Christi, Texas. They are depicted as the kind of right-wing evangelical Christian family that many people whose sole knowledge of the US comes from watching The Daily Show and reading The Onion might reflexively believe populates the entire US between LA and New York. The boys hunt deer and the girls clean up the entrails and cook the food. The young son plays Christian rock and is campaigning for Intelligent Design to be taught in his high school. The father preaches in the kind of Church that has a flashing electronic board advertising prayer times. Into this world steps a young man called Elvis, who has just quit the marines and now works as a pizza delivery boy and lives in a rented motel room. He is the illegitimate child of the preacher, and now, with his mother dead, has come back “home”. Unsurprisingly, the preacher’s first reaction is shock and denial, which pretty much breaks Elvis’ heart. His reactions to this rejection are bizarre and extreme.

Now, I started feeling uneasy at the caricatured picture of the preacher’s family at the start of the flick, but I thought, you know what, this could be a great chance to explore what goes on behind the scary clichés. (And yes, I do find the concept of teaching Intelligent Design in schools scary.) But the film never really does this. You get the idea that the family is made up of essentially good people, if somewhat conflicted, but despite some obvious set pieces involving the mother, I found it hard to empathise with their reactions to Elvis’ appearance. The real enigma, however, is Elvis. Having been rejected by his father, his actions take us into the realms of melo-drama or implausible daytime soap opera. There were storylines here that would make Sunset Beach look like an essay in narrative restraint. Crazy narrative arcs are not bad of themselves. Indeed, the outstanding western, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA used a surreal storyline to bring home the emotional awakening of its key characters. The problem with THE KING is that I was no clearer as to Elvis’ motives or even mental health at any point of the film. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe we are meant to be left with an enigma. But it makes for an intensely frustrating viewing experience.

Having said all this, in a curious way, this film is worth seeing purely because it is very well put together. The actors are all high-class, not least William Hurt as the preacher, Gael Garcia Bernal as Elvis, and Pell James as the preacher’s daughter. In addition, I though the camera-work was outstanding – evocative, beautiful, sometimes spooky. There is a very nicely done scene (although perhaps not fantastically original) near the end of the film, where the camera tracks through the rooms of the preacher’s house, slowly and quietly, until it comes across a painful scene that we *know* is waiting for us. Stirring stuff. The key question is whether good acting and photography, not to mention a cool sound-track, can compensate for a story-line that strains credulity and empathy. For me, THE KING was still worth a look, but if you watch movies rarely, you can surely pick better films on which to shell out your ten bucks.

THE KING was released in France in January 2006 and is currently on limited release in the US and UK. I do not know of a release date for Australia, Austria or Germany.

Overlooked DVD of the month - DEAD MAN'S SHOES

So, a friend of mine gave me a copy of DEAD MAN'S SHOES to watch because it is filmed in his home town of Matlock. I was not entirely thrilled. I have a well-known aversion to parts of the United Kingdom that lie outside Zone One of Central London, and it's not like I don't have enough movies to watch every day. I couldn't have been more stupid.

First off, the countryside surrounding the small town of Matlock looks stunning, and comes complete with a castle. It is captured in all its drama and sinister quietude by cinematographer Danny Cohen. Second, this movie takes the conventional revenge story and gives it a really novel re-telling. Paddy Considine, an outstanding actor, plays Richard. While he was in the army, his mentally retarded kid-brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell) fell in with a bunch of local goons who abused him terribly. Back from the army, Richard decides to take his revenge: "God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that." He starts off pulling pranks, but soon the violence escalates. In a much shorter space of time, and with a fraction of the cash used to make that over-blown wreck MUNICH, director Shane Meadows and actor Paddy Considine show us the ravages this necessary revenge unleashes on Richard. In one tiny little scene, we see Richard alone in a bus shelter and he simply closes his eyes. It is hard for me to describe how powerful such a simple action is in the context of this drama.

Another thing I like about DEAD MAN'S SHOES is that the reactions of the goons seems so plausible. These aren't hardened criminals but dumb, weak-minded small-time crooks. And when they aren't being scared shitless, they roam the country in a comedy 2CV and use the kind of jargon we'd expect from our mates down the pub of a Friday night. This sort of familiar environment makes the brutal and casual violence even more dramatic.

If I have any criticisms of the film they lie in the fact that, presumably due to lack of cold hard cash, a lot of the special effects look a bit ropey. The old cine-film used to show Richard and Anthony as kids is authentic and looks it, but the black and white recreations of "time past" are rather poorly done. Sometimes the poor make-up can detract from the unfolding drama. However, if these unfortunate lapses in production quality prevent DEAD MAN'S SHOES from being a great film, it remains a fascinating piece of British drama, and well worth checking out.

DEAD MAN'S SHOES premiered at Edinburgh 2004 and played at festivals throughout 2005. It goes on limited release in the US on May 12th 2006. It is also available on Region 2 DVD complete with the superb bitter-sweet comedy short film, NORTHERN SOUL.

Homage to OLDBOY - Tarantino wishes he were this good

With LADY VENGANCE on cinematic release, I thought I'd take the opportunity to review Park Chan-Wook's previous film, OLDBOY. OLDBOY is an intelligent but extreme South Korean revenge thriller. With a plot-line inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo and Kafka, we see a doofus middle-aged middle-class guy get arrested for drunken behaviour. The man is named Oh Dae-Su and in the first five minutes of this film we see the actor Choi Min-Sik giving one of the most convincing and hysterical portrayals of a harmless drunk. As his best friend comes to bail him out, Oh Dae-Su is abducted. When he comes to he is in a small bedroom with a TV set. This is to be his prison for crimes unspecified. 15 years later, again for no particular reason, he is released. We are still only twenty minutes into the film. Dae-Su has another hour and a half to find out who held him captive, and why, and to reap his revenge.

On a superficial reading, OLDBOY is the story of Oh Dae-Su's revenge on his captor and tormentor. But as his punishment has also been a "revenge" for a crime committed in his past, we find that we can identify with him as a victim of sorts. And even Dae-Su's tormentor is himself a deeply conflicted and sympathetic character. If we can find a "moral" to such an extreme and un-real set of circumstances, it is that human nature compels us to revenge, but we cannot find peace through it. We are condemned to a life of regret if we pass up the chance to avenge ourselves, and a life of torment if we follow through. This is the tragedy of man - essentially still a primitive creature, but condemned to live in a civilised world of his own making.

To the extent that this is true, OLDBOY covers much the same thematic ground as Spielberg's portentious and over-praised MUNICH. This comparison might seem a little facetious to people who have read about OLDBOY. How can I compare a movie that, while flawed, was at least serious and earnest, with a South Korean blood-and-gore horror movie?

But I think that the undeniably brutal violence in OLDBOY is in danger of detracting from the emotional veracity and subtlety of the movie. Choi Min-Sik's performance as Dae-Su is the key part of the movie's success. Due to styling, costume and choreography he can be incredibly menacing. But his soft features and expessive face mean that even when carrying out some vicious acts he looks vulnerable. (This is a facility he uses to great effect as the former boxing champion know fighting for cash on the side-walk in CRYING FIST.) Yes, in the iconic shot, the octopus is eaten live on screen. No, this is not considered a crime in Park's native South Korea. Yes I am very happy to needle my cuddly vegetarian friends with this fact. But the key point is that when Dae-Su eats the octopus it is because he is so desperate to eat a "living thing" - to feel life - even in its most brutal and visceral format. This is, after all, a man who has not felt rain for fifteen years.

So, I highly recommend OLDBOY. Ignore the superficial similarities to the all-style, no-substance movies of Tarantino. This really is an emotionally draining and thought-provoking movie.

OLDBOY went on release in South Korea in November 2004. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004, after extensive lobbying by Tarantino failed to get it the Palme d'Or. (The P'dO ended up going to Fahrenheit 9/11, proving that the Academy doesn't have exclusivity on pissing on true cinematic greatness from a great height.) OLDBOY went on release in Europe in winter 2004 and played Sundance in 2005. OLDBOY is now available on remastered DVD replete with a crazy-large amount of interviews with case ad crew. It has already been plagiarised by Bollywood in a piss-poor John Abraham/Lara Dutta flick called Zinda (Lock) and Hollywood isn't far behind.

SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE - violent yes, but beautiful also

After the massive success of JOINT SECURITY AREA, South Korean director Park Chan Wook could have pretty much done anything he wanted to. What happened was that he took a giant step into left-field with a bizarre movie called SYMPATHY FOR MISTER VENGEANCE. At the time, the movie tanked at the Box Office. Little did anyone know that it would become the first in a trilogy of highly acclaimed "vengeance" movies. Upon the release of the final movie in the trilogy, LADY VENGEANCE, I am taking the opportunity to have a look back at the first two films in the trilogy.

SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE is, despite the title, a "sweet" movie. Why so? Because it features a lot of characters who are emminently charming and empathetic. Chief among these is a young guy called Ryu. His sister is chronically ill and in need of an expensive kidney transplant. When Ryu is sacked by his boss, his girlfriend convinces him to kidnap the boss' daughter in order to win a ransom to pay for the transplant. Ryu's position is deeply sympathetic and remains so throughout the kidnapping. This the genius of Park Chan Wook. There is a lovely scene where the little girl is watching TV, balancing on Ryu's knees - so intimate and caring. Mad props have to go to the actor portraying Ryu - a character who is a deaf-mute - and so must be made sympathetic by means of facial expression and physical comedy. Unfortunately, at the handover, things go wrong, largely because of the appearance of a tragi-comic figure played by Seung-beom Ryu - the fantastic actor from CRYING FIST and ARAHAN. At this point, it is the little girl's father who becomes Mr Vengeance and the movie spirals into extreme violence that is photographed beautifully - a hallmark of Park Chan-Wook's work. The final scene at the lake is haunting, and more recent movies, such as HOSTEL, which rip off some of its most horrific content, fail to replicate the beauty of the original.

Overall, SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE is a violent and horrifying film. The real brilliance is to make the characters funny, original, credible and genuinely sympathetic. The movie is at turns bizarre and ridiculous, and yet beautiful and memorable. It is an amazing combination to have pulled off - and a recipe that was honed and perfected in each following film.

SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE is available on DVD.

LADY VENGEANCE - vicious and nasty, but in a good way!

Park Chan-Wook a.k.a Mr. Vengeance, is a man in whose pysche you would not want to get lost. He makes nasty, vicious, blood-drenched revenge thrillers that are an absolute joy to watch. He gets horror in a way that, say, the producers of Final Destination 3 do not. He knows that there is nothing more nauseatingly spine-chilling than seemingly normal, buttoned-up, vaguely attractive middle-class people taking to each other with axes. A lot of the time, due to deft editing, you don't even see the gruesome acts. You see the 'before' and 'after' and your brain does the rest of the work. Your imagination is going crazy with the most lurid, horrific visuals but at the same time your sympathy is with the perpetrator rather than the victim.

LADY VENGEANCE is the third in Park's revenge trilogy, following on from SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE and OLDBOY. Thematically all three movies tread the same ground: the impossibility of reconciling the lust for revenge with the desire for a peaceful life. However, that is not to say that if you see one Park Chan-Wook film you've seen them all. LADY has a more muted colour palette than OLDBOY, almost to the point of using grayscale highlighted by Lady Vengeance's red eye-shadow. The use of violence is also more muted - the acts are more often off-screen, and people who felt grossed out at OLDBOY should give LADY VENGEANCE a try. And while we do see some of the surreal caricatures that we got in OLDBOY - not least in the rogue's gallery of inmates in the prison - in general, the characters "look" far more normal. To my mind, that makes the horror far more affecting - the stylistic balance has definitely tilted from Tarantino to Lynch and all to the good.

Reasons to watch LADY VENGEANCE: 1. Looks bloody amazing - every scene is like watching a well designed and choreographed ballet. 2. Wickedly complicated plot that sticks a finger in the eye (and indeed a pair of scissors in the back of the neck) of those who would dumb down cinema. Broadly speaking, Lady Vengeance went down for a crime she didn't commit, A-Team style, and is now out of prison and out for revenge on the actual perp. 3. Features the darling of Korean ultra-violence, Choi Min-sik, known to canny viewers as the all-out badass in OLDBOY and as the boxer with a heart of gold in CRYING FIST. 4. Despite endemic sadism, the movie manages to create a genuine emotional connection between the audience and Lady Vengeance. 5. Despite hard-core nastiness, the movie creates scenes of fantastically dark and piercing humour. 6. Best use of transparent plastic raincoats since AMERICAN PSYCHO.

Reasons not to watch LADY VENGEANCE: 1. If you are vegetarian, tree-hugging hippie, who might get traumatised knowing that a small dog is being shot at point-blank range just off screen, you should avoid this film.

LADY VENGEANCE played the 2005 London Film Fest. It opened in France in November 2005, and in the UK yesterday. It goes on limited release in the US on the 5th May 2006.