Sabado, Enero 26, 2013

EXISTENSIALISM: OLDBOY 2003

EXISTENSIALISM: OLDBOY2003 (Film) by Park Chan-wook


EXISTENTIALISM Existentialism involves the attempt to make meaning in a chaotic world. Sartre argued, "man makes himself." As a form of literary criticism, existentialism seeks to analyze literary works, with special emphasis on the struggle to define meaning and identity in the face of alienation and isolation.



PLOT

Businessman Oh Dae-su is kidnapped the night of his young daughter's birthday and placed in solitary confinement in a hotel-like prison. Confined with no human contact or explanation for his kidnapping, Dae-Su soon learns through news reports his wife has been murdered, and he is the prime suspect. Years pass with him in confinement, and Dae-su passes the time shadowboxing, planning revenge, and secretly attempting to tunnel out of his cell; after exactly fifteen years of confinement, Dae-su is released without explanation on a rooftop.

Receiving a phone call from his captor and later collapsing at a sushi restaurant, Dae-su is taken in by Mi-do, the restaurant's young chef. After Dae-su tries to sexually assault Mi-do, she confides that she reciprocates his attraction to her, and states she will have sex with him when she is ready. After discovering his daughter has been adopted in Stockholm, a man communicating with Mi-do via instant messaging recognizes and taunts Dae-su; recalling the dumplings he ate daily while imprisoned, Dae-su tracks down the restaurant that makes them and follows a delivery moped to his captors. Discovering he was held in a private prison where people can pay to have others incarcerated, Dae-su tortures the owner Mr. Park for answers; he then finds out he was imprisoned for "talking too much", and fights his way out of the building.
Revealing himself as Dae-su's kidnapper, Woo-jin Lee approaches Dae-su and gives him an ultimatum; discovering his motives in five days will result in Woo-jin killing himself, but failing will result in Mi-do's death. As Dae-su and Mi-do grow emotionally intimate, the two make love. Dae-su discovers he and Woo-jin attended the same high school, and remembers spying on Woo-jin's incestuous relationship with his sister, Soo-ah. Unaware of the familial ties, he inadvertently spread a rumor before moving to Seoul; as a result of the rumor, Soo-ah suffered from false signs of pregnancy and committed suicide. Joining Dae-su's side after having his hand amputated by Woo-jin, Mr. Park agrees to incarcerate and protect Mi-do while Dae-su confronts Woo-jin.

Arriving at Woo-jin's penthouse, Dae-su admits he accidentally drove Soo-ah to suicide. Woo-jin then reveals that he has been controlling Dae-su's actions; by giving Dae-su a photo album, Woo-jin imparts that Mi-do is actually Dae-su's daughter, and that he orchestrated events through a hypnotist to make them fall in love and commit incest. A horrified Dae-su, now aware that Mr. Park is still working for Woo-jin, begs the latter to conceal the secret from Mi-do, grovelling for forgiveness before slicing out his own tongue as a symbol of his silence. Asking Mr. Park to spare Mi-do from the truth, Woo-jin leaves in an elevator, only to relive his sister's death and shoot himself.

Some time later, Dae-su sits in a winter landscape with the hypnotist whom Woo-jin used; touched by Dae-su's handwritten pleas, she hypnotizes him and alters his memories. Mi-do then finds Dae-su alone in the snow, and tells him she loves him before embracing him. Dae-su breaks into a wide grin, but it is quickly replaced by a look of pain, bringing into question whether the hypnosis worked.

CRITIQUE:

Park Chan-wook's masterpiece has truly embarked the curiosity and shocking nerves of the audience. Oldboy is about Oh Dae-su who wants to take revenge after 15 years in prison cell without clear reasons and explanations and not knowing his captor who made his life miserable. Oldboy's existentialist angst promises sophisticated returns only to spiral into callous Identity territory. Woo-jin Lee, the captor, only exists to take revenge on Dae-su and make the latter suffer from what Woo-jin Lee has been through before because of Dae-su's juvenile attitude by "talking too much" when they were in high school. Oh Dae-su, knowing his family murdered, only exists to take revenge and to know what's behind of his puzzled life. Once the present begins to liberally interact with the past, it's only a matter of time before a last-act revelation contextualizes (and trivializes) the film's strange happenings. The struggle of the characters in the story conceptualizes the attempt of their existence and meaning in this chaotic world.This melodramatic, brutal, heart-stopping film and its twisting plot made the Cannes people and juries amazed.

Watch it! It is highly recommended! 

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