Pieta is latest movie from exceptional and famous Korean director Ki-duk Kim, known for such tranquil and dramatic masterpieces as 3-Iron, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Samaria and many more that I had no opportunity to watch yet. He is no stranger to Cannes and Venice film festivals, however this particular movie triumphed at Venice film festival earning most prestige award there, Golden Lion.
Gang-Do (Jeong-jin Lee) lives in a small once blooming industrial district known for it's crafty metalworking, that now is laying down in poverty and is slowly being swallowed by the big city. People leave, and the ones that stay are unable to make ends meet. Gang-Do is a cruel, heartless debt collector for a local loan shark. One day he encounters a woman, who claims to his own mother whom abandoned him at birth. Thinking it's some kind of cruel joke, he rejects her claims, but she doesn't let go and is tenacious so eventually after some times passes they start to bond together. But who she really is? What are her reasons for appearing so sudden?
Recently there has been big influx of fantastic Korean movies whose central theme revolves around mother figure. Almost all the influential Korean directors have made a movies about it, such as Mother, Poetry, Secret Sunshine. Which in itself is not a surprise, considering that every living person in the world has a mother, so the story possibilities are quite extensive. Now it was Ki-duk Kim's time to make one.
It's a bleak, and sad movie, devoid of any lasting happiness. Jeong-jin Lee's character is cruel, cruel to his new found mother, to creditors, to himself. The world that raised him was cruel too.
What grabbed my attention is interesting camera work that was present in the movie, almost all the shots were filmed with hand held camera, even the static close ups, which made for some shaky, and at times amateurish experience, which might be what director was going after.
Ill be honest, this so far is my least liked Ki-duk Kim's movie. While it was quite gloomy and brutal, I felt it somehow lacked that realism which I love in movies, the feeling that such people exist and such events might happen to them. It felt more like theater performance on the big scene with set pieces instead of actual world out there. Maybe it was intended to be in a such way, isolated, out of this world experience like famous Michelangelo's sculpture Pieta, an artwork to be displayed and seen alone, by itself. To capture a moment of life.
Nonetheless, it didn't win Golden Lion for no reason, so while it may not be to my liking, definitely watch it and be a judge for yourself.
Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon
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