Pietà is director Kim Ki-duk's eighteenth movie. When this
fact appeared on the screen, a spontaneous applause erupted. Hugely
underappreciated at home, Kim Ki-duk is well-known beyond the borders of his
country South-Korea. He does not conform to any rules, doesn't avoid
sensitive subjects, and shows the harshness of life without any scruples,
political, humanistic and in a very physical confronting approach. It is
true that his films are usually not an easy watch; they certainly do not
conform to idea that film equals entertainment. The free thinking soul will
see that Kim Ki-duk’s movies are not made to shock the audience just for the
sake of it, but to show the thoughts of a brave artist, who exhibits a rare
vulnerability and a frightening honesty in his approach to his subjects.
Actrice Cho Min-soo who portrays the character Mi-son in the movie declares
during the press conference: “His films are eyes to reality”.
Apparently she and Lee Jung-Jin, who brilliantly plays main character
Gang-Do, barely knew who Kim Ki-duk was when they were asked to play the
parts. They tell the press that during the process of making the movie they
learned to act in a completely different way.
Made with a budget that is just a fraction of Korean film budgets these
days, outsider Pieta entices the jury and the public, and makes a far more
lasting impression than other more obvious candidates like To the Wonder, At
any price and Fill the void. Even though malicious rumors say that the jury
wanted to award The Master all the big prizes, Kim’s film is rightfully the
recipient of the Golden Lion. Accepting the prize, Kim thanked the actors,
staff, film festival officials and Italian fans before bursting into a
traditional Korean song.
The story of the film is about lone wolf, self-absorbed: masturbating, crazy
moralless man who lends money to desperate workers of the industrial slum of
Cheonggyecheon. He charges ten times the borrowed sum in interest. If his
clients don’t pay up, Gang-do cripples them, taking the insurance payments
on their injuries to make up for the difference. His character is a metaphor
for extreme capitalism. Kim commented: “...but not the money itself, you can
change the face of money. Money is the third character”.
Then a women shows up at his doorstep, claiming to be the mother who
abandoned him as a baby. He tests her in some gruesome ways, before he
acknowledges her presence and even begins to show signs of affection towards
her. Mi-son also proves herself to him by being just as ruthless as him.They
form a frightful but also strangely intriguing duo. The grim story finds
some more breathing space for the audience towards the end, but a bitter
aftertaste remains.
What makes Kim Ki-duk an excellent storyteller is that most of the graphic
cruelty is not shown, but actually takes place in the viewer’s imagination.
He is able to show real life images that can represent abstract ideas. He
can make an audience relate to his characters even though they are immoral
and almost heartless human beings, doing this with so much ease is
remarkable. It is a rare quality to be able to find beauty in the most harsh
places and to somehow convey this strange beauty to the screen. To make you
believe in the story, without realizing it is perhaps an absurd one. And
maybe most important: to make the viewer emotionally gripped, while talking
about universal human issues, emotions and ideas even though there are
cultural differences that separate audience and filmmaker. Kim Ki-duk:
“[Pietà is] an embrace to the whole of humanity. The movie is dedicated to
humankind."
10:09:2012
prima pubblicazione festival di venezia 2012 |