A Triptych of Vengeance

Chan-wook Park is a difficult filmmaker. That is to say, his creations are troubling beasts. I've just watched Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the last film in his Revenge trilogy- 3 films that do not share a common story but instead a theme.

The first, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, was many things. Stylistic, brutal, harrowing. The film tells the tale of a deaf-mute man who kidnaps a small boy in order to raise money for an operation to save the life of his terminally-ill sister. The boy dies, quite by accident, and his father embarks on a quest to hunt down his kidnappers. That isn't quite the sum total of events in the film, but I can't very well give it all away. In a way, the film is a black comedy, a comedy of errors. Everything that could possibly go wrong for the main characters does. The deaf-mute man, in particular, just can't get a break. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. What made Sympathy for Mr Vengeance truly masterful was the way it managed to make both protagonists eminently sympathetic throughout it's course. Which makes the inevitable confrontation and shocking denouement all the more effective. Out of the three, it is perhaps the most powerful in depicting the vicious cycle that revenge creates.

If revenge is one common element of all 3 films, style is the other. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was awash in style. The film had enough tricky camera angles, beautifully crafted mise-en-scène, moody lighting and unique use of colour to fill a film textbook. Oldboy upped the ante. It was nothing if not utterly, utterly gorgeous. It also had one of the most compelling premises I've ever heard of: A man, ordinary in every way, is abducted and imprisoned, without rhyme or reason. 15 years pass. He is released with a new set of clothes and a handphone. He meets a girl, who takes pity on him and allows him to live with her. The handphone he was released with finally rings. It's his captor, who gives him an ultimatum- find him in 5 days, or his new girlfriend dies.

This it the the film that shot Chan-wook Park into the global consciousness. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It's been alternately called a masterpiece and a soulless exercise in style. For my part, I found it brilliant- it's technical virtuosity is dazzling and it's story was genuinely gut-wrenching. The twist ending was, to me, the single most terrible thing I've seen in a film. The question of whether the film is anything more than a slicked-up, glorified exploitation flick is one that's been much-debated, online and off. I'm on the side that considers it more, much more. Famed critic Rogert Ebert says it better than I can.

Which leaves the 3rd and last film- Sympathy for Lady Vengeance- which has yet to be released in the USA outside of various film festivals. Incredibly, it's even more stylish than Oldboy. Chan-wook Park uses this film to show off just how amazing his grasp of the craft of film really is. The editing, in particular, is exceptional. And yet... the story somehow failed to engage me fully. Perhaps it was the fact that, despite presenting the viewer with a lot of information, the first half of the film feels languid and deliberate. The story takes it's time to wind it's way down. This is an unhurried vengeance.

The film tells the story of Lee Geum-Ja, a woman who at age 19 was taken to prison for the kidnapping and murder of a 5-year old boy, an act to which she confessed. While in prison, she carefully plans the murder of the man who drove her to that act. This film deals, almost obsessively, with the idea of redemption. It is, you could say, the central concern of the film. But somehow, this theme feels muddled in execution. The film meanders across half a dozen storylines. (This is not to say those storylines are not well-told. Most of them involve the inmates of the prison where our heroine, Geum-Ja, spent 13 years of her life.)

Geum-Ja is ironically a less-talkative character than the deaf-mute from Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, who narrates a good part of that film. She is colder, less accessible than the "heroes" of the first 2 films. I cannot penetrate the dark heart of this film. Like it's main character, it is cold, inaccessible. Still, it was entertaining (it's far funnier than you would think a film of it's subject matter could be) and I will no doubt watch it again. Perhaps time and repeated viewings will melt it's frozen heart.