Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

The heir apparent to Sam Peckinpah is tucked away far from Hollywood. Chan-wook Park, I'm sure few people know of him outside of Korea but talent like this can not go unoticed for long. I knew nothing of this film or Mr. Park before seeing it at the Seattle International Film Festival. Human (political?) isolation permeates the film, connectiveness to others whether familial or conjugal comes with a steep price to pay. Vengence to reclaim honor is a staple in Asian cinema, Mr. Park's "Revenge" completely sidesteps the tired honor formula making us question what happens when normal folk take revenge into the realm of pyschotic? This is the type of film that you and your friends will passionately discuss over STRONG drinks afterwords, there is no nuetrality in opinions, like Solondz's "Hapiness" you love it or hate it. As the film ended, a packed house gave a tepid applause, not because of a lack of enthusiasm, a collective numbness left a pall over the audience, a raping of all the senses. Like Cronenberg's "Crash" and Tarkovsky's "Stalker", one becomes defeated by a hypnotic sense of forboding, you are forced to endure it, pummeled into submission. The violence is very graphic, but as much as Mr. Park show's, it's what he doesn't show that makes him so talented, the subtle use of sound to advance the film is outright brilliance. Like Takeshi Kitano's early films, the extreme violence is never gratuitous yet the like offbeat humor, very unsettling. "Sympathy For Mr. Vengence" is not 'dark' it is uncompromisingly bleak, ah but bleakness never looked so good!