Award-winning director Kim Ki-duk has built up an international reputation with his films that starkly differ from other mainstream movies in Korea and elsewhere. He stands out largely because he never veers off from his obsessive pursuit of provocative styles and thought-provoking themes.
For better or worse, Kim did not pull any punches in making his 15th feature, "Dream (Bi-Mong)," to be released on Oct. 9. The movie is drawing keen media attention by signing on high-profile actors -- Lee Na-young from Korea and Joe Odagiri Japan -- but viewers should be aware of the cinematic puzzles director Kim routinely inserts in his films in order to grasp what is really going on in this mixture of reality and fantasy.
In the film, Odagiri plays Jin, an artist who sees himself causing a car crash in his dream. What he discovers, however, is that his dream is not a mere creation of his brain because all the details he witnessed while sleeping turns out to be true in the reality. Or that's what viewers are supposed to assume, given the quirky plot turns provided by director Kim who never shies away from purposeful ambiguity and ambivalence.
Jin encounters a woman named Ran (Lee Na-young), a character who has plenty of grievances about her own life, especially concerning the shattered relationships with her former boyfriend. Strange as it may be, what Jin believes he has done in his dream is what Ran has done in reality. Although the car accident happens in Jin's dream, the same incident plays out real in Ran's life, with police suspecting her as the prime suspect in the case.
The key proposition of the movie is that the two main characters are connected through dreams in a way that blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy. And a butterfly emerges as the core image symbolizing the significance of dreams. In fact, this metaphor comes from a well-known ancient Chinese thinker, and its implication is rather straightforward: A person may dream about his life and discovers that it's just a dream when he wakes up, but how can he be sure about the possibility that what seems the reality is also another dream?
Director Kim's presentation of dream's implication, however, is far from straightforward. The subplots, for instance, seem utterly confusing. Jin used to have his girlfriend, but the relationship is now over. But he finds himself dreaming about his former girlfriend and he vaguely senses that he still loves her. While Jin is struggling in his dreams, Ran is visiting her former boyfriend, not in her dream but while sleeping because she is a somnambulist. She hates the man deeply and when she realizes what she has done at night, she gets mad at Jin, the man whose dream goes in lockstep with her nightly visits.
To resolve the situation, Jin and Ran attempt to do the almost impossible: no sleep at night. The assumption is that if Jin does not sleep, Ran does not have to walk around in her sleep. Jin can also sleep without his much-dreaded dream that generates real events in dream when Ran is awake.
Their struggle to stay awake is, as some of director Kim's fans might correctly predict, depicted in a gruesome manner. Self-inflicted torture abounds on the screen, which will make the audiences twist and turn in their seats.
The movie's dramatic intensity accelerate at a precarious pace when the two character's former lovers, played by Park Ji-ah and Kim Tae-hyun, join a crucial scene where four people shout at each other, trying to reverse what has already happened. At this point, it is no longer possible to identify where the reality starts and where the fantasy ends. All the conflicting elements get mixed up while the characters go through an enormous amount of pain and suffering.
One hint about director Kim's message is the peculiar existence of Jin. Japanese actor Odagiri plays the role in Japanese, while all the other characters speak in Korean. Strangely enough, Jin communicates perfectly with other Koreans even though he continues to speak in Japanese. His otherworldly identity that gets to go beyond the language barrier is certainly unrealistic, but director Kim leaves more questions than answers about his new cinematic dreamland that is depressingly desolate.
Credits : Yang Sung-jin (insight@heraldm.com)
Source : The Korea Herald
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/
