You watch, helpless, as a woman transforms into a mass murderer. You can read her thoughts…it doesn’t take a
mind reader: People are going to grind you into the dirt, .They have done it; they will keep on doing it…unless you
bite back the way they bit you.
If this sounds like a vision of pure Hell, you are pretty close to the mark. Isolated communities sometimes turn more extreme, less stabilized by outside forces. On this Korean island, the woman feels it…every waking moment. Those normalizing forces have disappeared, at least faded into the distance. Not that her family lives in poverty–they have enough of the basics. But her husband’s rage–and abuse…is steadily growing worse. And his family all backs him up, unconditionally.
This woman Bok-nam, continues to dream of someone rescuing her..But none of the occasional visitors to the island offers any help. That leaves one old friend, Hae-won, she is still confident might help her.When Hae-won comes to visit, after years of being away, Bok-nam’s hopes go sky-high.
A WRONG IMPRESSION; BOK-NAM BELIEVES HAE-WON IS BACK TO RESCUE HER
But Hae-won was never really a friend, anyone’s friend. Bok-nam has resisted this truth, painted a rosy-colored picture over it. When Hae-won turns out to be the selfish, passive woman she always was, Bok-nam begins to give in to the darkest, savage parts of herself. Not only are her prayers unanswered,they were mocked. Life not only remained the same; it turned far worse. God, or the Universe, or karma, has turned her life to pure misery–and she will no longer be silent and accept it.
HAE-WON WITH YEON-HEE
People who go to movies for blood-spattered floors and faces will
love this movie…but that doesn’t make it garbage. These characters are not teenagers, talking about high school bullshit, Internet gossip and clothes, till some psychopath begins murdering them. Not even close. Even though you don’t know these actors, you probably will feel you know these characters, the dreams they have given up, the dreams they still hold on to.
You even empathize with Hae-won, when you first meet her–unwilling to take the chance of testifying against some gangsters from her neighborhood. The low-level gangsters make it clear–you talk, we will find ways to hurt you. They are deadly serious, you can see it in their faces. It is simple to watch the movie, tell yourself, What a coward. But in real life, it is easy to rationalize when it is you having to pick them out of a line-up. Of course, the police tell her, We’ll take good care of you…
But they don’t inspire any faith. The huge capitol city of Seoul has such a feeling of desperation you can taste it…like New York City in the late 70’s.
Burn-out, at a high pressure job, and with Seoul in general, is why Hae-won visits the island (she spent time there as a girl.) Seeing Bok-nam never figured into her decision.
Realizing this is a major factor in Bok-nam turning to violence. Many of us might re-wind a story line in our memory–going backwards from where a character kills for the first time. It can be heartbreaking to realize how different their life could have been…if they had made other decisions.
To give one example, watch Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron–brilliant) in Monster. Aileen is unmistakably angry and bitter; she would need a lot of time to describe all the abuse she suffered till now. Yet she still has not written off everyone as her enemy. You sense the dreams she held onto: a loving one-to-one relationship, a job that pays the rent, a home to share with a special someone.
The scene where she believes she has taken her first step towards that, in her friendship with Selby (Christina Ricci) is both unexpected and devastating. They make out, blissful, oblivious to the un-romantic ambience outside a bowling alley. The Journey song Don’t Stop Believing blasts out its beacon of escaping two ugly lives for a new one… fulfillment…of finding our destiny.
Before and after, these realistic scenes show clearly, how unlikely Aileen’s dreams are. But that love scene is realistic too…you won’t forget it, even while you watch her life turn to shit.
Bok-nam held on to some dreams too, for years. The island never had many people; now, less than a dozen remain. Bok-nam’s husband, Man-Jong, believes he was kind and self-sacrificing to marry her. She had a daughter from a previous relationship, yet he took both of them in. In addition, he feels she has always been cold to him…ungrateful…for her, sex is a chore at best. All he asked of her was to work as hard as was realistic in this situation–four other women on the island, all of them old. How could he expect any less?
Man-jong is not someone to let people get the better of him, especially not a worthless wife. That need to stay top dog is probably the main cause of Bok-nam’s next horror. She realizes that Man-jong is molesting her daughter. Her husband’s response–what if I am, bitch? You have nothing to say about that.
MAN AND CHILD
Bok-nam’s response is a testament to her character. She tells Hae-won; if you can’t get me off this island, at least let my daughter go. The movie begins in the brutal world of the city–plunging you into Hae-won’s life first. One advantage in this– you meet Bok-nam for the first time after Hae-won reaches the island, not before. You experience Bok-nam; her humanity surviving her life’s brutality. She doesn’t have to tell you, you can see it. Her happiness in being with her old friend, in showing her around the island, introducing Hae-won to her daughter, Yeon-hee, in taking her to places they knew as girls.
At one of those places, they lie soaked, serene a brief moment in a tiny spring hidden in forest. Bok-nam gently reaches out and touches Hae-won’s breast. Hae-won, surprised, but not furious, tells her to stop.
Is Bok-nam a lesbian? No reason to think not, but I saw this scene differently. I think Bok-nam is overcome by how much she missed their childhood, and in imagining the freedom in her future—away from this stifling place. Of discovering her own sexuality—whatever that might be. She knows so little about the big city she feels that anything there is possible.
Hae-won barely gives one word of encouragement about Bok-nam leaving with her. But Man-jong is threatened nevertheless by the change in his wife–ready to show he is still in charge. A hooker arrives by boat; Man-jong has sex with her in the house.
Another time, you watch him have sex with Bok-nam…hardly different from rape. He plays a cruel joke on his wife while she is getting honey from a beehive. She is stung several times. His response: put some bean paste on those stings; we need more honey for the guy on the boat tomorrow.
BOK-NAM TAKES THE IMPACT OF MAN-JONG TRYING TO SHOW HIS DOMINANCE
And the four old women, always watching, always ready to back him up in any argument, period. The brutality in Man-jong trickles directly down to them. The toughest, known as Auntie, is always around, with something to say to Bok-nam. Everything is Bok-nam’s fault. She walks up to Bok-nam when the hooker is inside her house, asks her simply, “How can you sit here, listening to her sucking your husband’s cock?”
No empathy intended. Only this-–get out of here; make yourself useful. Another time, Auntie finds Hae-won talking to Bok-nam’s daughter. She tells her to get off this island, that Yeon-hee is not Man-jong’s biological daughter. In other words: so what’s your problem, bitch?
AUNTIE
The real tragedy begins when Bok-nam tries to escape with her daughter on the next boat out. She has made no plans with Hae-won; she has already lost faith in her. Man-jong is there–no way he will let them leave And the surest way to convince them–to save face with Hae-won and the old ladies watching–is violence.
I don’t want to give away too much more of the story. Leave it at this: the escape plan falls apart and Yeon-hee dies. Bok-nam’s life is changed suddenly, irrevocably. She has no reason to continue as she was.
NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.
Incredibly, worse violence is still to come. No major spoilers. You realize–she has crossed the whole spectrum…from the ecstatic woman so full of hope, to now.
Yet after kicking the shit out of you, the movie leaves you with grains of hope. Back home in Seoul again, Hae-won gets a last chance to testify against the same gangsters. Risking her life, she decides to do the right thing.
She finally has learned the price you pay for staying silent. She can never forget the violence she witnessed…but at last, witnessing it has made a difference, changed her.
The horror she experienced has broken through the barrier she built around herself. She realizes now she was never safe–none of us can achieve that, whatever gated community we take ourselves to. We may improve our odds of avoiding violence, true, but “staying out of it, not getting involved” guarantees us nothing.
