Can a man have
an orgasm without a penis? Probable something most families will be discussing
over the dinner table tonight, far-fetched, not if they have recently seen Kim
Ki-duk latest movie.
An exceptional piece of work with a narrative that navigates a path which most other
filmmakers would fear to tread.
 |
| Mother. |
Almost 55
years old the South Korean director/writer shows no sign of mellowing his film
making skills. Following the brilliant Pieta
(2012) - a film which mixed Christian symbolism and highly sexual content, which
depicts the mysterious relationship between a brutal man who works for loan sharks and
a middle-aged woman who claims that she is his mother - with a movie that’s
equally as intense, bloodthirsty and sexy. Mobius (2013), which was
initially banned in South Korea, before the Korea Media Rating Board reviewed
the film and changed the rating, starts with a row between mother and father about who should answer
a ringing mobile phone, mother is aware that its fathers mistress calling him! Following the embittered dispute that follows
mother retrieves a knife kept under the Buddha statue in the family’s front
room and attacks her husband attempting to part him from his penis, when this fails
she turns on her teenage son who she has just caught masturbating and manages
to part the lad from his manhood, eating the severed genital in front of both
her husband and son. Obviously the father feels guilty and dumps his mistress who
then takes pity on the son and gets raped for her trouble. Meanwhile the father
spends his time searching the Internet to see if it’s possible for his son to
have a transplant but of course he will need a donor!
 |
| Father. |
In an introduction
made for the Terracotta Film Festival Kim Ki-duk assures us that “there
is a
message behind
this intense, bloodthirsty and sexy film which is meant to bring out all that
is human, desire, family and sex, and to show all human existence is connected
with each other and that the personal and society are also connected together
by sex”. Described by the director as having quite shocking and cruel images
(which I would not argue with!) that are used to deal with the essence of
desire and the sort of anger that humans possess. He admits that watching the
scenes in the film will be painful and hard for the viewer but insists that you
should look beyond that and see the message he intended!
 |
| Mistress and Son. |
Although the
movie does have a script it is completely void of dialog, its not a silent film
with its emotional grunts and groans, it’s just that no one actually speaks - some
thing that you will fail to notice once the story begins to unfold! It stars
Kim regular Jo Jae-hyeon as the father; Seo Yeong-joo-I, who at sixteen years
old is to young to see the movie, plays the challenging part of the son who the
director first saw in Juvenile Offender
(2012), which in turn led to him being offered the role. The same actress, the
wonderful Lee Eun-woo, plays both mother and mistress. All three are totally
convincing as are the supporting cast.
Even though it received many distinctions in the festival circuit it shamefully
did not get a full UK distribution when released on the 8th August
2014. Described as ‘a most inventive and intriguing film’, ‘enjoyably perverse’,
and ‘an Oedipal fairy tale’ - ok maybe not to every ones taste but those of you
who are Kim Ki-duk devotees or perhaps just like watching
something different must see this joyously amusing film now available on DVD.
