I Saw the Devil - Movie Review

I Saw the Devil
Original Title: Ang-ma-reul bo-at-da
2010
Dir. Jee-woon Kim

Spoiler Free!

Imagine a world in which Craven's Last House on the Left was subtly-made, compelling, beautiful, and ends up actually meaning something... Well, guess what: minus the famous 'biting' scene, you're in luck!  I Saw the Devil is your ticket.

This Korean horror-drama by Jee-woon Kim takes the cliche secret-agent revenge flick to a new level.  After only 53 minutes, this movie had the main characters in 'the final showdown', and I was baffled at what it was going to do with itself for the remaining hour and a half.  Well, it does plenty, weaving a plot so satisfying it had me clapping with sick glee.

A psychotic killer by the name of Kyung-chul (played by Min-sik Choi), kidnaps, rapes, and murders women.  One of those women was the fiancee of secret agent Soo-hyeon (played by the handsome Byung-hun Lee).  Taking two weeks off work, Soo-hyeon begins to track down her killer in the most badass way possible.  He doesn't faff around with investigating his suspects, he just sneaks up, assaults them, and gets them to confess about whether they're the killer.  Just so you know how serious he is, he smashes one rapist's junk with a hammer - just for good measure.  After two dead ends, he tracks down Kyung-chul and the real story begins.

There's a magnificent fight scene in a greenhouse that establishes Kyung-chul as physically intimidating and ruthless, but also establishes that Soo-hyeon is an unmitigated bad-ass.  Soo-hyeon WRECKS Kyung-chul.  But then, Kyung-chul wakes up with bruises, a broken wrist, and an envelope full of cash on his chest.  And this is where the movie takes off.

See, just killing Kyung-chul would be too easy, to simple for Soo-hyeon.  He wants that monster to suffer in pain and fear, just like Soo-hyeon's fiancee did in her final moments.  Thus I Saw the Devil takes us on a twisting ride that I can genuinely call cat-and-mouse without hating myself.  Kyung-chul goes about his serial-killing psychopathic business, stalked and repeatedly beaten by Soo-hyeon.  Along the way we meet all manner of strange low-lifes, cannibals, innocents, and diligent cops trying to tag along in Soo-hyeon's wake.

But do not mistake I Saw the Devil as a mere action-thriller.  There is no emotional triumph at the end for Soo-hyeon.  Justice is not served.  When all is said and done there is only blood and cold and despair.  And despite the fact that I Saw the Devil wallows heartily in all the great things about the horror movie psychopath (placing it squarely in the horror genre, I think), it maintains a steady, fundamental undercurrent of existential darkness.  It's the same theme that plenty of artsy movies try to get at, just without the wham-bang fight scenes and outstandingly rendered gore.  Sort of like if The Bicycle Thief were re-written by a Nebraskan teenager in a Cannibal Corpse t-shirt.  But then somebody with taste took it away and made sure it was good.

One of the best things about this movie is that, as it progresses, one isn't sure exactly who the Devil in it is.  At the mid-point, the perspective of the movie tilts toward Kyung-chul, the killer's, almost making him the protagonist as he bullies doctors and rapes a nurse.  This part, in particular, was where I felt the Last House on the Left resonance the most.  I was always put off by how LHotL seemed more concerned, even sympathetic, with the raping, murdering hooligans than the totally dorky, lame-o parents.  Perhaps it's the cynical part of me that knows there's countless douche-bags out there that agree.  Likewise, Kyung-chul runs around like an MRA's comic-book hero, not taking shit from old people, telling it like it is, complaining about how "the bitches are always out to get him", and generally being a huge prick.  But, a prick than has no compunctions about slitting your throat with a broken piece of glass.  This said, when Soo-hyeon begins to haunt him like a relentless spectre, I Saw the Devil almost seems to say that Soo-hyeon is the devil, and that's AWESOME.

But of course, nothing is so clear cut.  Later, as we see Soo-hyeon's broken condition, it is clearly Kyung-chul that was the devil.  Kyung-chul destroyed everything about Soo-hyeon's life, including his ability to be himself.

However, I don't mean to oversell the complexity of this movie.  What I'm trying to explain is that this movie deftly examines the most rudimentary blocks of morality and how our actions influence our identity.  It doesn't go very deep, so don't expect it to.  However, it goes deeper than I ever expected a movie like this to go.  Gory revenge flicks almost seem hard-coded to be mindless, pointless, and pornographic in the most boring of ways.  I Saw the Devil is not.  It's fun, exciting, scary, gruesome, but also puts the effort in to be good at all.

The reason why I react with such enthusiasm to this movie is that it's a bit of a rare bird.  It's an example of a horror movie that is splashy and satisfying enough to please the most plebeian audience, but is well-made enough to make stern critics shrug and admit it's not ALL BAD.  And this isn't just in the plotting or the excellence of the acting.  The editing (and subsequently, the pacing) is magnificent.  I Saw the Devil takes its time to show character development, while seamlessly advancing through the engrossing plot.  It's shot beautifully, in stern, wintry greys that are exploded apart by bright blood sprays.  Further the manner in which the camera conveys its action (even outside its color palate), is masterfully conducted.  If this convinces you: it's the first time I've ever seen the Michael-Bay-360 happen in a movie and actually BE GOOD.  Mindblowingly good.  Good because it makes the onscreen action claustrophobic, yet entirely visible in necessary ways.

In conclusion, I would recommend I Saw the Devil to anybody who likes a horror movie.  Because even if you don't go in for the splatter of serial killers, you can at least enjoy it for being a well-made film.  You can enjoy it for how it (might) make you cry, and (might) make you cheer or laugh.  You can enjoy it for how it doesn't turn away from its moral implications and inevitable personal repercussions.  But really, when you get down to it, it's just one of the hands-down best showings in the revenge-flick category you're likely to see.

-Joanna

ORLAN - Carnal Art

There's this extremely tired cliche in horror about killers that goes: "Blood is his paint, and flesh his canvas!  He is an artist of the body!"  That said, let me introduce you to a woman who ACTUALLY IS ONE.

Born Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte, she now goes by ORLAN.  A artist since her teens in the '60s, she is known for challenging societal conceptions of femininity in her work.  Melding media such as video broadcasting and photography with her performances, she is best known for pushing boundaries in the most gruesome, glorious ways using her own body.

While the rest of her work informs the following, in this article, I'm going to focus in on her project "The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan."  In 1990, ORLAN began a series of plastic surgeries to reconfigure her face.  She chose features from famous paintings and sculptures, informed by classical Western standards of beauty.  Surgeons gave her the chin of Boticelli's Venus, and lips like Francois Boucher's Europa. They gave her Mona Lisa's forehead.  Critics frequently reduce her art to a shock-tactic meant to garner attention for herself, or a striving to become a "beauty".  Instead, in her own words, Orlan chose these features because she was compelled by the stories of the women depicted.

However, ORLAN didn't just order the surgeries and reveal herself after years of transformation.  Rather, the surgeries themselves became her performances.  She dressed herself in flamboyant, ritualistic costumes and insisted that cameras captured all the stomach-churning realities of the operating room.  She wanted to convey everything about the process of the surgery, not merely its result.

In her Carnal Art Manifesto, a text released in tandem with the project, she exclaims "I can observe my own body cut open without suffering!... I can see myself all the way down to my viscera, a new stage of gaze."  Later, "Carnal Art transforms the body into language, reversing the biblical idea of the word made flesh; the flesh is made word."  (See footnotes for a link to the full text).

Now, this might all seem very artistic and diffuse and not very creepy at all.  Well, allow me to present for your edification: Orlan - Carnal Art.  This 2001 feature-length documentary IS BRUTAL.

TRIGGER WARNING: Unedited surgical procedures, so much blood, scalpels, needles, lots of full-frontal nudity, sacrilege, and extreme Frenchness.

Seriously, though, if you have a problem seeing blood, you need to lay down before you watch this thing.  I don't have issues with blood and gore, and yet, ORLAN's art was very effective on me (i.e. it was extremely hard to watch without squirming).

The best or worst thing about how this documentary is run is that in the process of conveying the artistic message of ORLAN, its rendering is a bit... intense.  Watching it, my rational mind kept nodding, saying "Yes, I understand art is going on." while the rest of me screamed "IS THE SCARY MUSIC REALLY SO NECESSARY?!  OH, GOD, WHY AREN'T YOU CUTTING AWAY WHEN THE THING GOES IN HER CHIN?  WHAT IS THIS?"

But, make no mistake- just because ORLAN revels in the grotesqueries of surgery, and criticizes the manner in which it's often used by women, doesn't mean she doesn't support it.  If anything, her work reinforces how plastic surgery can be an immensely powerful tool for self-realization.  She refuses to be held back by the conventions of society which still revere the body as sacred, and reforms her flesh as she sees fit in a radical act of determination.  She chooses features that have previously been determined by others and makes them her own in the most intimate of ways.  Which, I have to say, I really respect.

And just to take it a step further, ORLAN also kept relics of her experiences in the operating room, including the doctors' used surgical gloves and chunks of her own flesh.  She used them to make more art.

In conclusion, I'd like to point out that artists like ORLAN can have a lot to say with regard to the horror genre.  ORLAN is not working within horror as a genre, but rather high-brow, body-performance art.  In her performances, where her face is literally cut open, she makes statements about intimacy, identity, life, death, fear, agency, beauty, sacredness, meaning, and art itself.  As a result, work like this really highlights how shallow splatter can be.  I appreciate the technical expertise of making gore "look good" on film, but 95% of the time all that fake blood and silicone doesn't even have anything to say outside of "Look, we're made of meat!  Are you scared yet?  Be spooped!"  After watching something as fascinating and harrowing as Carnal Art, it's even harder for me to be interested in the paltry, flailings of slasher movies and torture pron.

-Joanna

My Bloody Valentine - Movie Review

My Bloody Valentine
1981
Directed by George Mihalka
Spoiler Free!

Happy Valentine's Day!  Whether you're single or attached, I hope you're spending today anywhere other than a sad little mining town in Canada.  My Bloody Valentine takes place in just such a backwater, haunted by the specter of its dark past.

The story goes: 20 years ago, while the townspeople twisted away at the Valentine's Day Dance, a terrible mine accident trapped 5 men underground.  After a rescue effort that took several weeks, they pulled one survivor from the dark: Harry Warden.  Having resorted to cannibalism, Warden was now deeply insane.  A year quietly passed.  Then, on the next Valentine's Day, Harry Warden returned to murder the two supervisors responsible for the accident with a pick ax.  He left their hearts in heart-shaped chocolate boxes with notes warning the town never to have a Valentine's Day Dance again!

For 20 years, the warning had been heeded.  That is, until now.  The dance is back on, and it seems Harry has returned.  Hearts and bodies pop up everywhere as the sheriff and mayor deal with the crisis.  A group of young people (the men work in the mine, the women.... put up Valentine's Day decorations) are insistent that the Valentine's Day Dance go ahead.  When the sheriff cancels it, they plan to break into the rec-area of the mine and hold it anyways.

By the end, the body count is growing, and the remaining characters are left to race through the mines, running from the gas-masked madman.

With a title like My Bloody Valentine, one would expect this to be a slasher schlock-fest complete with terrible music, college-girls in bras, and plenty of gratuitous violence.  I'm not gonna say My Bloody Valentine LACKS those things, but it does manage to conduct itself without ever falling deep into the pit of Bad Movie-dom.

If you go into My Bloody Valentine expecting art, you will be disappointed.  If you go in expecting a fun horror movie, you will be rewarded with chocolate.

Or organ meats... whichever.

The pacing is perfect.  Dread is accomplished quickly and succinctly, particularly in the first-person stalking scenes.  Storytelling is a thing this movie does at all, which in turn means that we get definition on the many characters.  And it does so without forcing us to watch the actors exchange terrible, blunt, tired lines of dialogue about their backstories that are so bleakly generic that they might as well have been making seal-sounds (or perhaps my angst about the remake is bleeding in here- Orp, orp,orp!).

Speaking of characters, from the sheriff to the twenty-somethings, the players are distinct enough to keep straight, and some are even lovable.  For example, Hollis, a bearlike, mustached guy who is actually responsible, yet also a pretty cool dude in a committed, caring relationship with his lady.  Of course, there's plenty of sexism and a love triangle, but near the end these problems begin to shift in subtle ways.  The two guys fighting over a girl completely put aside their differences to make sure everyone gets out of the mine alive.  Relationships are sometimes portrayed as... actual relationships that include things other than banging.  The authority figures do things authority figures would, which includes not telling the youngsters jackshit.  Also, there's a deeply sad moment involving the sheriff and a box of chocolates that hints at how the adults are also leading their own complicated and emotional lives.

Then, we get to my favorite part: the makeup and practical effects.  My Bloody Valentine comes off as a bit coy when it comes to gore.  This may have been because the MPAA cut 9 minutes of "gore" from the feature before its release.  But whatever the cause, the effect is that we don't have to spend long stretches of time staring as a person gurgles.  In fact, we frequently only get glimpses of the kills, reminiscent of the man who got his eyes pecked out by finches in The Birds (only not quite as classy).  However, when we do get a look at the gore, it's very well-done.  There's no "Here, let me wet toilet-paper and stick it to your face, then over-use my stippling sponge- HOLD STILL" in this movie.  It's as if the make-up department actually bothered to look up the difference between someone who gets third degree burns from boiling water, and someone who gets burns from being left in an industrial dryer overnight.

Of course, there's plenty about My Bloody Valentine that evokes giggles rather than gasps.  The villain is distinctly Darth Vader-y.  The opening scene is basically all you ever need to know about a slasher movie ever- it's so cliche that it's like a warm hug from a teddy-bear.  The twist-ending is visible from a mile away, and the plot plays it by the book.

But what made me enjoy My Bloody Valentine is how right it gets it.  All the genetic markers for slasher movies are here, and done very well.  In my opinion, the thing that makes a good slasher movie is not how scary it is, but rather the chord it strikes.  Slasher-movies ought to be a thrilling admixture of schadenfruede, creepiness. laughs, and investment in the characters.  They're the campfire stories about hooks on cardoors.  Their purpose is to compel teenagers to clutch each other, then chuckle awkwardly, not stay with those teens until 3 o'clock staring at the ceiling.  Thus, with this being my personal rubric for slasher-flicks, I think My Bloody Valentine is a good one.  Perhaps not the greatest of all time, but a solid entry.

-Joanna