Kim Ki-duk: I won't play with you anymore

Major 2022-03-09 08:02:17

Milan Kundera said at the beginning of "The Unbearable Lightness of Life": "In this world, everything is forgiven in advance, and everything is ridiculously allowed." Allowing someone to stand above the world, Some people are also allowed to fall three feet into the dust. There is no absolute truth in the world, and some are just a bunch of bloody problems. These questions are woven into a huge web in which people are trapped, laughing at each other and pity each other.
Jin Ji-deok's "Net", for the first time, abandoned the relief path of religion (Buddhism), placed the characters in a deep and closed world, imposed strict space control (state, secret room) on them, and forced them into marginal situations step by step. Destroy the free will and desire to survive as a human being.
Nan Zheyu is an ordinary North Korean fisherman living on the border between North Korea and South Korea. He has a suite, a boat, a warm wife and children, and he lived a happy life. One early morning, after having a romantic relationship with his wife, Nan went out to fish in a fresh air, but the engine broke down and he was reluctant to abandon the boat and floated into the Korean border. Unsurprisingly, he was closely interrogated by the Korean authorities. After basically determined that Nan was not a so-called spy, the person in charge of the Korean authorities "recruited" him with a heart of healing and saving lives, coercing and enticing him to set up a trick. However, the bullying of values ​​did not make Nan give up his resistance. He was obsessed with his wife and daughter and was determined to return to the north. After several twists and turns, he returned to the north, and was not unexpectedly questioned by the North Korean authorities. In South Korea, the South was strong and unyielding; when he returned to North Korea, he was like a puppet, cowardly and timid. The so-called national ideology, on the one hand, teaches people to be slaves to their own people, and on the other hand, teaches people to be thugs to their enemies. As a result, Nan saved his life by sacrificing the dollars smuggled back from South Korea by chrysanthemums (here is mind-blowing to "Domestic Lingling Paint", Jin Ji-de guessed that he couldn't think of a more ingenious way to blacken corruption). When he got home, Nan was not very excited. Facing his wife's initiative to seek pleasure, he could only burst into tears - he, impotence! This time, Jin finally showed mercy, and did not cut down the root of his troubles with a quick knife. As the most basic and core part of human instinct, sexual function has always been the focus of Kim's interrogation. In the past, the Kim family regarded it as the root of evil, but now it has become the target of persecution. From the initiative seeking pleasure at the beginning of the film to the impotence at this time, under the echoes of the beginning and the end, Jin deliberately wrote Nan Zheyu's road to impotence, revealing the spatial predicament of life and the mental anxiety and dysfunction caused by it. The power of the writing is deep and impressive. The fishing license was revoked, and the impotent Nan Zheyu finally broke out, determined to fight the world to death. Despite the dissuasion of the border snipers, he resolutely went to the river to fish, but he died of a bullet.
Some viewers believe that this film is a work of Kim's self-subversion, and the previous Kim style has disappeared in this film. In my humble opinion, there are still some traces of Kim's in the film. For example, Nam said, "I may have caught too many fish in the net recently, and now it's my turn to be entangled in the net." This is not Kim Ki-duk's consistent fatalism. ? Buddhism did not escape, but evolved into a kind of enlightenment in a desperate situation. In the past he put the problem after Buddhism, now he puts the problem before Buddhism. These problems are the original sins that come with life, and they cannot be rid of or eliminated. What should we do? Perhaps only a symbolic cry: I will not play with you!

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Extended Reading
  • Arvid 2022-04-24 07:01:25

    This time the Hong Kong translation name is very appropriate - "people who can't escape from the north" is the whole story of "Net". Kim Ki-duk's camera language is still restrained and simple, but he has injected too many stereotyped and symbolic descriptions into the characters who live or live under two completely different ideologies, making the story itself full of conflict and tension, but unable to Cover up the film's lack of technique and flaws.

  • Brionna 2022-03-19 09:01:10

    go to hell! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

The Net quotes

  • Oh Jin-woo: The brighter the light, the darker its shadow...