I like the way how South Korean movies mix together genres to showcase the overthrowing of a fragile order by the nightmarish chaos. My most favorite thriller of the Korean New Wave is Bong Joon-Ho’s “Memories of Murder”, where in its initial scene you see the footprints of an impending chaotic disorder (badly mutilated corpse hidden inside a small irrigation tunnel, next to an agricultural field). Gradually this initial disorder expands in the landscape as well as in the characters’ mindscape to restore an ultimate emptiness. In “Memories of Murder” we often see visuals where the central characters are pinned against the canvas of disarrayed surroundings (for example, think of that scene when the lead detective looks for a vital piece of paper standing above mounds of garbage, or the great final tunnel scene). Chaos not only upends an order to test the protagonist’s courage; chaos actually tastes a victory in such layered South Korean feature films. Director Na Hong-jin, like his counterparts Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon, Park Chan-wook, is intrigued in designing the petrified, perplexing journey of a central character in a perturbed world. While his previous two acclaimed noirish thrillers “The Chaser” (2008) and “The Yellow Sea” (2010) dealt with a chaotic situation, instilled by apprehensible human blunders, the new sensational horror “The Wailing” (aka ‘Goksung’, 2016) terrifies us by an ambiguous, supernatural chaos.
The intense, multiple-genre cook-up in “The Wailing” created
a sensation in this year’s Cannes Film Festival and lead the film to become a
big box-office hit in its country. There’s the trademark Korean dark humor,
unexpected gore, profound contemplation on the nature of fear and sin,
references to folklore, eastern philosophy, and bible. In “The Wailing”, Na
Hong-jin walks through the elements and themes with an elegance of a tightrope
walker that we are not only thoroughly entertained within the 156 minute
running time, but also its reach extends beyond the running time to make us ruminate
upon human behavior, in the face of all-consuming threats. The film would
definitely diffuses a feeling of having watched an incoherent narrative. The
uncertainty in the tremendously tense final act of the film leads to painful
questions and forces us to fish through our cognitive abilities. Yes it is one
of the rare supernatural horror/thriller, in which you can’t afford to turn off
your mind to feel the dread; in fact the more you contemplate about the
unexplained horror in “The Wailing”, the more terrifying your movie experience
will be. Of course, those who see that
perfectly calibrated uncertainty as stupid or maddening would end up having a
frustrating experience. Even if an open-minded viewer couldn’t grasp everything
happening in the film, he/she could solely appreciate it for the crazy,
visceral thrill ride.
Unlike the great American supernatural thrillers, “The
Wailing” doesn’t consist of a single tone to cue in the viewers to react in
predefined ways. Like the unpredictable chaos that descends upon protagonist,
we are left uncertain on how we should react or take in the visual compositions.
Therein I felt that the metamorphosis of this invigorating genre-blender
commences. The movie opens with a shot of a strange, old man hooking up fish
bait. Since the stranger is a Japanese man, the question among the suspecting
small-town Korean villagers is whether he is only baiting for fish or human
souls. The Korean title ‘Goksung’ is the name of village, where a disturbing
crime has been done. Two people are stabbed to death in a brutal manner as the
perpetrator (fellow family member), sits outside the house in a trance, his
body entirely covered with boils. The protagonist is a police sergeant named
Jeon Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won). He lives with his wife, mother-in law and an
impertinent 10 year old daughter Hyo-jin (Kim Hwan-hee). Jong-goo, on the insistence
of his family members, slowly takes his breakfast before heading to the brutal
crime scene, made more chaotic by the heavy rainfall and muddy landscape. The
inept, idiocy of the protagonist brings to mind the futile investigation
methods of Song Kang-ho’s Detective Park in “Memories of Murder”. The
out-of-shape Jong-goo is not good at securing the crime scene, let alone
investigating about it (he constantly uses family as an excuse for turning up late at
work). Although he seems to be in the periphery of investigation, the gruesome
murders set off his nightmares. Few days later, another family is murdered and
the killer acts as if possessed by a demon.
A fellow cop talks to Jong-goo about the rumor circulating
in the village about a mysterious Japanese guy (Jun Kunimura), who has taken a
cabin deep in the woods. The old Japanese guy is suspected of a being either
a serial killer or a demon. Jong-goo only grunts at this idea (or rumor) and
berates upon the fellow cop. A string of nightmares and bizarre real-life
experience slowly pushes Jong-goo to investigate upon the strange foreign guy.
By this time, his smart preteen daughter Hyo-jin starts acting in a weird
manner (the weirdness which afflicted other murdered/murdering villagers). The
mother-in law fears that it might be a demonic possession and that they need to
contact a famous shaman (Hwang Jung-min). The time for shedding the goofy, every-man antics arrive for Jong-goo and since his familial harmony is
threatened he desperately turns to be a reluctant hero. Before agreeing to
shaman’s idea to perform a death hex on the foreign demon, Jong-goo boldly goes
to investigate the Japanese man’s cabin (taking alongside his cop friend and a
young translator). Terrifying developments continue to happen and the basic
fear, desperation to fend off the evil actually leads to incertitude and total
chaos. Director/writer Na Hong-jin cranks up the sense of dread and tension in
the final act to unbearable levels. Up to that point, “The Wailing” was eerie
and thrilling, but towards that riveting final act, it becomes bone-chilling
scary.
Korean film-makers are adept in constructing the uneventful,
banal life events of the characters. We could something concrete or common in
the way Jong-goo reacts to horror or tragedy. He doesn’t act in a manner to
extract single emotion; he’s awkward like us that we both laugh at him as well
as feel for him. Jong-goo doesn’t act as the cinematic guy whom we hope to see.
He is just full of unpredictable emotions like all of us. There’s no one way to
react to fear or tragedy. Sometimes we may remain insensitive, yet in other
times we might be fully engulfed by panic. The callous attitude of the
protagonist doesn’t vanish in the initial series of murders, since the gruesome
crimes don’t threaten his quotidian life. The agony and dread sets off a
bizarre chain of emotions only after Jong-goo discovers how he could be just
another pawn in the deadly game played by supernatural force. The transformation
from casualness to fury and poignant plaintiveness is not only relatable, but
also works in favor of the movie’s general unanticipated volatile nature. Director/writer
Na Hong-jin deliberately paints the characters with an innocent and monstrous
side that we aren’t able to figure out who is who. For example, Kunimura’s
stranger character lacks fixed expressions that he could pass off as savior as
well as the devil. The same goes for shaman and the white-clad village spirit.
In one stand-off sequence, Jong-goo confronts a scary dog and kills it
brutally. The ferociousness, sorrow and dark humor flows through that small
sequence, making us wonder about his character nature.
Majority of the terrifying
set-pieces are cloaked in ambiguity. We don’t know when reality ends up and
when nightmare starts off in one early scene. In the elaborate ritual
performance of the shaman, we aren’t sure who is performing a death hex on
whom. Eventually, in the thunderous final sequence, we are kept in the dark
about who is telling the truth. Even when the truth comes to light, we are left
with unanswered, nightmarish questions. There are some brilliant references to
bible (as the opening bible verse state about the doubts Jesus’ disciples after
his resurrection), eastern occult practices and other western religious
symbolism. These elements are mixed together and co-exist to interpret upon the
meandering madness, although we never latch onto a precise answer. The narrative sort of becomes a chicken-egg
scenario. Is the old guy responsible for this malevolent, hidden fear? Or is it
the fear that strengthens the malice of the old guy? What is the right decision
which might have changed Jong-goo’s and his family’s fate? Did Jong-goo any
choice at all to make the right decision? Of course, Na Hong-jin’s narrative
doesn’t help us find a path through the cluttered ambiguity; he simply wants us
direct our thoughts to the movie’s painful central themes of invisible fear and
human perception. We gaze at different, inexplicable situations of madness in
the climax (the cross-cutting of conversations incites a spine-tingling effect)
that we really don’t know what is the absolute truth (you see, it’s all in the
perception). Is Xenophobia a vital theme? Is it about people letting the fear
of ‘others’ ('foreign devils') getting better of them? I can’t say for sure. For
the most part, the director is interested in the spiritual spaces that we don’t
know whether he is inclined to make a sociopolitical statement.
As I mentioned before, the tonal changes are flawlessly
handled. The thriller and supernatural elements mutually elevates the
narrative’s general descent into desolation. The ongoing devastation in the
village (both economic and spiritual) is referred through richly detailed
imagery (cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo). The unkempt local stores, dried-up
herbs, long shot of a woman hanging up in a tree, etc keeps on suggesting of
the impending invasion of bleakness. The writing loops and thematic weight
doesn’t drag down the visual thrill in feeling the whirlwind of nightmares. Do
Wan Kwak as Jong-goo gradually draws us to feel his desperation. While the
initial mixture of pathos and humor allows the viewer to relate with Jong-goo,
the later dark touche to his character stays true to the story’s controlled mad
leaps. The presence of Kunimura Jun and Chun Woo-hee (was wonderful in “Han
Gong-Ju") as the two polarizing supernatural figures leaves a deep impression on
us.
Trailer
“The Wailing” aka “Goksung” (156 minutes) is a provocative,
hypnotic and path-breaking horror thriller which goes for a pervading
atmosphere of chaos than conjuring up cheap scares. Rarely, I have come across a
genre cinema that deals with the elemental sort of doubt and fear in such an
intricate manner.
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