Isle, The (2000)
[director Kim Ki-Duk]
It’s got the single most horrific thing in it I’ve ever seen in a movie. When I realized what actress Suh Jung was about to do, my mouth just dropped open in shock. Who could think up such an awful event? Kim Ki-Duk, that’s who. The rather scandalous director has been kicking up dirt since his mid-nineties Birdcage Inn and Crocodile, and now here comes The Isle. It’s slow-moving and deceptively brightly colored. What’s more, it’s not a horror movie. It’s more of a psychological/metaphorical look at the dark relationship between two deeply troubled people: one a cop on the run from the law after killing his girlfriend (he discovered she was having an affair with his friend behind his back), the other a mute woman who runs a bait shop on the lake where the guy is hiding. Though the cop seems pretty dangerous himself, it turns out that the woman is more of a psychopath. She doesn’t talk out of choice, preferring to express herself through facial expressions, lovemaking, and inflicting pain. That’s about it, nothing more.
Kim has turned out a nasty, gnarly movie here. And it’s worth your time. It’s a telling exploration of male/female romance isolated in harsh, minimal settings. Not perhaps a great masterpiece, but ever interesting.
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