Geomi sup (2004)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Il-gon Song

Writer:

Il-gon Song (writer)

Release Date:

3 September 2004 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

A recently widowed TV producer is drawn to an isolated cabin in a mysterious woods. |

Plot Keywords:

Cabin | TV Producer | Car Accident | Hit By Car | Forest

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Woo-seong Kam	...	Kang Min
Jung Suh	...	Min Su-jin
Kyeong-heon Kang	...	Hwang, Su-yeong
Hyeong-seong Jang	...	Choi, Seong-hyeon
Byung-ho Son	...	Kim Cheol-ju
Seung-kil Jeong
Won-sang Park
Yeong Yun
Yeong-jae Kim
Seong-cheol Jang

Also Known As:

Spider Forest (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexuality and violence, and for language.

Runtime:

South Korea:112 min | Japan:120 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Germany:16 | Singapore:R21 | UK:15 | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R16 | South Korea:18 | Japan:R-18 | Hong Kong:III | USA:R

Company:

CJ Entertainment

Toronto film festival - 2nd screening

Before seeing Spider Forest last night at the Toronto International Film Festival (agree with comments by cbranje, the ROM theatre is not the best at masking outside sounds, though the occasional rumble of the subway did add an extra shot of tension to some of the more suspenseful scenes), I'd heard it described as a film for those who liked 'Mulholland Drive' but found it too linear. While I don't think it's a very accurate statement, the film does invite comparisons to David Lynch. The creepy tone, gruesome murder scene, elliptical narrative structure, and ambiguous plot resolution are all Lynchian trademarks but I think Spider Forest is a little more straightforward or at least it lends itself more readily to a range of interpretations.

The set up: a man wakes in the forest, discovers the mutilated corpses of coworkers in a house in a forest, and pursues a man he believes to be the killer. Though most of the ensuing story is told in what may be hazy, and possibly wholly fictitious, recollections of the past, each memory recreates a moment of truth that one could easily see as happening to this man. We see him mourn the loss of his wife then hear other stories about death and loss and wonder, are these manifestation's of one event or separate incidents that actually occurred.

The film poses epistemological questions like: How do we know that we know? What differentiates consciousness from sleep? Is what we consider reality merely our continual reconstruction of our past experiences? For me, figuring out what's happened to the main character in 'Spider Forest' is akin to piecing together the fragments of a bizarre dream, but with the pleasure of seeing these fragments unfold in a series of beautifully shot frames.

Definitely recommend.