Back in Darmstadt means back in the well-guided care of the Studentischer Filmkreis Darmstadt, which currently hosts a Kim Ki-Duk feature. Samaria is disturbing, like most of Kim Ki-Duk’s movies. For me, this movie had two key scenes, concerning either death or departure. One is strangely remote and quiet. A girl dies with a smile on her face that lingers on after her violent end. The other is noisy and full of exhaust fumes. Shame and honesty bring forth a departure that is long planned but still surprising in the care it expresses. These are only some of the poetic scenes of the movie. Although poetic, Kim Ki-Duk is always controversial – children selling their bodies to men who are seemingly not beasts but also tender lovers, a caring father who causes a blood-bath (in a very literal sense) – this movie is not for the faint-hearted. It throws a quiet and violent view on a world that is filled with silence and revenge both working against the dreams of a better life.
IMDb entry | Trailer
Posts Tagged ‘violence’
Samaria – Death with a young girl’s smile.
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006Not sure about the violence.
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005About a month ago I saw Sin City – impressive pictures, super soundtrack and excellent actors that blend into the the dark and gritty world of Frank Miller’s Sin City perfectly. It is the best comic adaption that I have seen so far. Comics are one of my favorite media – the story telling possiblities offered by putting pictures into sequences are stunning. (If you haven’t done so until now, you definitely have to read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, which is also translated into German. One of the few must have reads that I would recommend to anyone.)
However, I do have one problem with the comic market which definitely moves into focus when watching Sin City as a movie: the aggressive depiction of violence. From my perspective, the violence in Sin City wasn’t too bad; I found it less disconcerting than the comic sequence in Kill Bill vol. 1 for example. The use of colors other than red for blood, the obvious non-realism of the massive amount of injuries sustained by the protagonists and the whole mystic and dark atmosphere made dealing with the violence easier for me. Nonetheless, I remain skeptical about the whole kill splatter shoot die moan guts-flying-around issue – my non-spilled guts tell me to…
IMDb entry | Trailer
It’s shocking. So what?
Sunday, February 22nd, 2004I wrote that I would write a review of Baise Moi which I saw a while ago. Well, my judgement hasn’t changed much since I saw the movie; I still don’t see much worthwile in this movie. The big thing about this movie supposedly lies in the fact that the sex/rape scenes are ‘real,’ i.e. the sex scenes are performed by actors and you can see them fuck and rape as you would in a porn movie. So what differentiates this movie from a violence oriented porn movie? My experiences with that genre are somewhat slim (which I don’t mind), but I wonder if the differences are that big. Otherwise, several scenes in this movie are ugly and cause physical discomfort for me (and the uglyness and causing of physical discomfort does not depend on the fact that the violent sex has really been performed. I also feel discomfort when watching the ‘fake’ shooting and non-sexual violence in this movie.) At the same time, I don’t feel very enlightended or shocked in a productive way – I just feel bad after watching this movie. The only positive effect that I can discern is that watching these kinds of movies makes me want things like this not to happen. Perhaps this is good enough. And perhaps you want to see the trailer.