Reviewing Kim Ki-duk's 3 Iron has prompted my immediate revisiting of his earlier works, with another favorite of his, The Isle. The film has a rawer, more violent and unsettling take on a love story that clearly separates earlier Ki-duk from his more recent tame spiritual endeavors. Still, we nonetheless end up with a rather similar experience that makes the viewer squeamish from characters' physical and emotional torment and leaves you affected and curious from their outcomes.
A mute woman, Hee-jin, runs a resort along a lake in the Korean wilderness, in which customers rent out small one room houses floating a short Boat ride away from the shore. She follows the daily routine, traveling Between the houses occasionally, selling bait, food or her body to the fishermen, when she meets the quiet Hyun-shik, whom she soon takes a liking to.
The Isle most strongly excels in the same way as other Ki-duk films excel, with strengths lying in the character drama. Although Ki-duk doesn't express too much about his characters outside of the things pertaining to sex and violence, the substance he gets through by saying so little is still remarkable. That's not to say the film is filled with these exploitative themes, but the characters defining moments (asides from one) often seem to revolve around these two connected Ki-duk themes. So, whether he makes his characters mute for foreign audiences, or as a pretentious attempt to make actions speak louder than words, it works fine just to create a unique experience. Ki-duk uses the lack of dialogue to his advantage here to illustrate themes pertaining to love and relationships. The actors handle this very well, at least the three important ones that mesh well together. Suh Jung is stand-out, in her cold, calculating actions that sends shivers down your spine one moment and feels romantic the next when she sits with the quiet Hyun-shik. Seo Won, whom gets a delightful adventure later in Ki-duk's Bad Guy, compliments the two quiet characters perfectly as a sweet, talkative prostitute for a sharp and bittersweet contrast to our "protagonists".
Ki-duk also takes the route of Kitano's Dolls sometimes, by illustrating dependency and longing through love. However, he does this more symbolically, in the interesting premise that pits Hee-jin in control of the tiny resort. She Is the only one with a Boat, and however shoddy it may be, she still is in charge of taking people to the floats, or taking them back to shore when they want to leave. All at her convenience. When this seems to come into play with her relationships, Ki-duk ties this scenario in very well with the themes he is trying to illustrate.
Along with the dependency comes an extra emphasis on pain. Ki-duk can really leave you restless with his horrible images of the uses of fishhooks to quite effectively showcase the pain that stems from dependency. With a fine focus on these two aspects, he crafts the characters to act accordingly and realistically. The relationship and entire symbolism of the film creates rather intelligent parallelisms. Some Between the two main characters and the evolution of their relationship. Some again dealing with symbols of fishing and a wounded fish that continues swimming on. The writing simply comes very well together in the end with a strong natural literary sense.
In addition to the writing, Ki-duk succeeds in creating a strong distinctive atmosphere for the experience. The dreary color palette along with the usual foggy lake weather depicts a rather pale, lifeless existence on the screen. Characters act leisurely and subtly mundane to work with the mood even further for a strong viewer experience. Tack on a sporadic yet powerful soundtrack and several moments of dark humor and Ki-duk has you in the palm of his hands. Once the viewer understands the mood, Ki-duk begins to manipulate it through potentially disturbing plot twists and blending polar opposites in mood. One could say how magical and warm the film is when they think about the bits of the love story, while at the exact same time, another person could be horrified with how disturbing it is. This combination is truly something special about the film that can cause the viewer to think, interpret and question the reality of the situation itself.
While The Isle can stand as a stirring introduction to Ki-duk's work, something about it seems very famiLiar, be it the characters or the themes. Characters seem to act in similar ways with the mandatory infliction of pain to demonstrate themes. Kim Ki-duk may be recycling some of his elements and lessening the impact for each film he follows up with. Still, even with the same tools, he has still managed to hit the viewer in a different way with certain films and can easily leave a lasting impression.
~ Tuna
