Hwang Wook’s The Woman is wonderfully weird. Ostensibly a murder mystery, Wook’s (Mash Ville) return to the Fantasia Festival, where The Woman is having its world premiere, astutely taps into a Lynchian vein of strangeness that regularly surprises as often as it risks breaking your heart.
Thematically, there’s a lot to unpack and interrogate in The Woman, though as a pure genre exercise, the film works just as well if you let its uncanny aura wash over you, maybe possess you. Sun-kyung (Han Hye-ji) accepts an offer to meet a stranger, Young-hwan (Byun Jin-su), for a free vacuum cleaner. Far from being a simple cautionary tale about meeting strangers online, The Woman is instead far more interested in the psychology of its key players, the secrets they withhold, and the modern world’s laissez-faire approach to neighbor hurting neighbor, to noxious gossip and insidious rumor.
The foray into uncertainty is incited by Young-hwan’s weird behavior at the exchange. Sun-kyung has brought a carton of strawberries as a thank you, though he declines, sharing an odd story about how his mother died after accepting a laced drink from a stranger. Fine and good as they part ways, though Young-hwan soon chases Sun-kyung down, having changed his mind. He’s unsettling, too familiar, and inexplicably physical, going so far as to snatch the strawberries from her hand. Luckily, Sun-kyung’s college classmate intervenes just in time. The following day, he’s found dead, an alleged death by suicide via a laced drink found in his apartment.
In the simplest terms, The Woman is about Sun-kyung’s efforts to prove that this strange, vacuum man is responsible. Whether he is or isn’t is far from the point. Before he’s even introduced, Sun-kyung is no less strange. She’s plagued by surreal nightmares, has a spotty past, and seems just a touch off. No one believes her accusations. Should they be believed? What’s with the lock of women’s hair tangled in her new vacuum?
The Woman dovetails some from Lynchian surrealism inasmuch as there are plenty of answers, surprising though they might seem. Most impressive is how low-key, organic, and inconsequential the proceedings are. Profound revelations are spared from embellished drama, and The Woman never feels like the kind of contrived psychological thriller that’s trying to deceive its audience. Everything you need is there if you know where to look.
I’m hesitant to share more beyond broad brushstrokes, but Hwang Wook’s The Woman (co-written with Lim Dong-min) is quietly thrilling and unassumingly intense. It’s one of the most remarkable accomplishments at this year’s fest. The digital, in-your-face filmmaking is antagonistic in the best way, and The Woman regularly reminds me of the early century’s best, unconventional noirs—think Brick, A Bittersweet Life. It’s eerie, provocative, surprising, and all too easy to get lost in.
https://ift.tt/SzTZ6tr https://ift.tt/LIBSGo6
No comments:
Post a Comment