Opinions
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Some stuff we stashed in this tome...
- 21 article(s).
- 3 years, 1 month since the last one.
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance – Boksuneun naui geot
There is one scene from Sympathy for Mr Vengeance which summarises why I like Park Chan-wook so much – Ryu sits in his dingy room helplessly while his ailing sister moans in pain and the boys next door masturbate listening to it.
But that’s not how he shows it. What we see is a row of masturbating young men who are trying to keep up their illusion by touching each other selectively and by looking at pornographic images put at the back of the guy in front. They have pressed their ears to the wall, and we can hear in the background what appears to be the moaning of an orgasm. The camera keeps drifting, and we have some time to think about the scene at hand to allow us to detach ourselves with casual deprecation. Then we come to Ryu’s room to find him sitting on a chair with the kind of detachment that can come only from utter despair, and we find his ailing sister moaning in pain on the floor.
Now we have to judge those young men again in light of our previous impression.
Just another scene calculated to shock? Yes, but there is more that Park Chan-wook conveys here. Those masturbating young men, they are not perverts, they are common human beings just like you and me. Their lives are our lives, and that is all there is to life.
