In the second tier waterlogged Argento film Trauma (1993), a character stares at a print of John Everett Millais's 'Ophelia' (1852), and he seemingly stumbles over a clue. His vision is blurred from crying, and in a reflection in the glass he spies a stranger in black with a snake bracelet whom he mistakes for someone else. Young-hyun Chang uses this Argento sequence as his stepping off point to explore the blurred relationship between art and reality in 'Tell Me Something' (1999) aka Telmisseomding.
A cloud hangs over the head of Lieutenant Cho, and how he paid for his mothers' medical expenses. "Why would Park pay an 85 million won bill for a detective trying to arrest him?" is the question an internal affairs investigator asks Cho. Although the question of being guilty of taking a bribe is not resolved, he does say to a colleague (Detective Oh) in one scene "I still don't know if I did the right thing." To which Oh replies "I'm sure you didn't want to go like that, but a decision had to be made."
A key scene with seeing, watching, and different ways of being seen involves the questioning of Suyeon Chae. Through various devices such as telemonitors, and shots through internal windows, we see him looking at her, his partner looking at her, and her looking at a video, looking at pictures, and we know that she knows. She knows things.
In a nod to 'Giallo' pulp fiction origins, Miss Chae after being installed in the Lieutenants house, finds a note; 'Call me if you need anything. There's a gun in the drawer.' In a neat piece of montage, we are lulled by a waltz as the Lieutenant shows Miss Chae how to use the gun, which is quickly followed by a sequence of mayhem on a freeway as a truck runs over one of the seemingly ubiquitous black garbage bags of body parts that are being dumped around the city.
Miss Chae's friend Seungmin is a medical intern who seems like the most likely candidate from the get go; you know her cheery countenance is guilty. She wears white all the time, knows how to use a scalpel. Seungmin has long hair Chae short, Chae is artistic Seungmin scientific. And let's not forget this is influenced by Dario Argento who likes to have an alternate killer in the background.
An okay waterlogged thriller whose opening credits features a painting reminiscent of Rembrandt's 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp' (1632), which sets up Argento's fresco concern. In the first visit to Miss Chae's house we see a postcard sized reproduction to John Everett Millais' 'Ophelia' (1852), used similarly in Argento's 'Trauma' and 'The Stendahl Syndrome'. Later, in Miss Chae's country family house, there is a painting depicting her as 'Ophelia' from the Millais, painted by her father.
Argento like mise-en-scene can be found in an economically executed sequence in a crowded elevator, and another garbage bag full of body parts. The exterior of Miss Chae's fathers house is reminiscent of the empty house in Deep Red. Instead of the children's scrawl on the wall, we get a montage of photos of Miss Chae and a reproduction of the Rembrandt picture. Ultimately though, the idea of scopophilia, being sexual pleasure from looking
gazing, is how Argento seeps through this work. Worth a look.
