Review #923 - Arirang (2011)
THE SCOOP
Director: Kim Ki-duk
Plot: Documentary on director Kim Ki-Duk looking back at his film career.
Genre: Documentary / Drama
Awards: Won Un Certain Regard (Cannes).
Runtime: 100min
Rating: PG13
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
Director Kim Ki-duk breaks into a
traditional Korean folk song halfway through Arirang, singing empathetically as he sits alone in a tent in his
old house, somewhere in the cold mountains of his birthplace.
He calls himself a world famous
director, bringing national pride whenever he wins major awards at prestigious
international film festivals. He laments
the fact that most of his features have been box-office failures in South
Korea, yet critics love his raw and bold works of art. In Arirang,
Kim points the camera at himself as he shares his thoughts about filmmaking and
being a film director.
Incredibly prolific with fifteen
features made in twelve years, Kim suffered from an artistic and deeply
personal crisis when an actress was nearly hung to death whilst shooting a scene
in Dream (2008).
It was a traumatic experience for
him, and he was further affected by news that two of his directing assistants
who had been understudying him for a few years left to sign with major
production companies after milking all the knowledge and skills from him. The betrayal and trauma shattered Kim, and he
couldn't make another film.
Arirang works as a confession
of sorts, recorded on digital camera. It
is powerful at times, with scenes of real emotions, or are they not? That is for the viewer to contemplate. Whether the ‘documentary’ is self-indulgently
staged with Kim flexing his acting powers (and of him as a director directing
himself), or one made genuinely from the heart, it is hard to argue that Arirang works at some human level in a
way that elicits sympathy for a tortured soul.
Strictly for Kim Ki-duk fans and
discerning cinephiles only, this Cannes’ Un Certain Regard award winner can be
a tough (read: boring) one to sit through, and at more than 100 minutes, it can
be long.
Arirang reminds of Jafar
Panahi’s This Is Not a Film (2011), a
documentary that the Iranian filmmaker shot while under house arrest. But unlike Panahi’s film, there is no
political statement of intent in Arirang.
Instead, Kim’s work is best
described as a self portrait as the director vents his anger, frustration and
sadness. People do that on blogs, while
some do that on vlogs. This is a
flog. The final fifteen minutes are
quite intense, but does he find a silver lining? Kim would go on to win the Golden Lion at
Venice for his next feature, Pieta
(2012).
GRADE: B (7.5/10 or 3.5 stars)
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