Seom - the island
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Seom - the island |
| Original title | 섬 (Seom) |
| Country of production | South Korea |
| original language | Korean |
| Publishing year | 2000 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Kim Ki-duk |
| script | Kim Ki-duk |
| production | Lee Eun |
| music | Jeon Sang-yun |
| camera | Suh Sik-hwang |
| cut | Kyung Min-ho |
| occupation | |
| |
Seom - The Island is a feature film by the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk from 2000 .
action
A remote lake, in the middle of the idyllic green of the surrounding trees. Here the quiet Hee-Jin offers anglers a little paradise to escape from everyday life in the big city. From her hut on the shore, she provides her guests on her small houseboats on the lake with groceries, fishing accessories and charitable services. Already at the beginning of the film her unbelievable coldness and injuries emerge when she attacks a suitor who is mocking her in the protective darkness of the night and pulls them down with her.
One day Hyun-Shik also rents a houseboat and sets up his fishing tackle on the small island. But actually he didn’t come fishing, but on the run from the police. A former cop himself, he became a murderer when he caught his girlfriend red-handed with her lover. Tormented by fear and feelings of guilt, he soon tries to commit suicide with his pistol, which Hee-Jin prevents by cutting him through the bottom of his raft with a knife. Also later, when Hyun-Shik threatens to be found by his pursuers and he then wants to kill himself again by swallowing a bundle of fishhooks, Hee-Jin is there, pulls him under the water by the swallowed fishhook, thus preventing the police from being caught finds him. After she has treated him, a gentle, playful relationship begins between the two. Hyun-Shik makes figures out of wire for the sad, silent Hee-Jin and thus manages to win her love. After an act of love that Hyun-Shik goes through as if intoxicated in order to numb his mental and physical pain, Hee-Jin calls the prostitute Eun-A for him, while she too has sex with a newcomer. But the budding intimate togetherness between Hyun-Shik and Eun-A hurts her so deeply that she ties her rival and locks her on one of the rafts. But Eun-A falls into the lake and drowns. To cover up the accident, she sinks the body in the lake. The pimp who appears is also "disposed of" in this way after a scuffle. The critical events lead to an argument, as a result of which Hyun-Shik beats and rapes Hee-Jin. For her part, Hee-Jin is now so desperate by the renewed, raw appearance and the disappointment of the man she loves that she now makes a desperate attempt at suicide by sticking a bundle of fishhooks into her vagina and into the lake falls. Only then does Hyun-Shik awaken from his self-pity and save Hee-Jin in order to lovingly free her from the fishhook and nurse her back to health. When, after a brief, happily reconciled get-together on one of the sunny rafts, police divers discover the two bodies, Hee-Jin uses a raft with an outboard motor as an escape vehicle and the two lovers hide in a reed grove in the middle of the lake, a metaphorical oasis not only as a refuge from the police, but above all from the darkness of the world. Asleep huddled together in the sunshine, at the end of the film the raft drifts out of the protective thicket out onto the lake. In the final shots you can see Hyun-Sik walking into a reed grove, up to his chest in the water. Then the naked, no longer breathing Hee-Jin is shown lying in the sunken boat. Her shame is green, probably as an allusion to the reed grove in which Hyun-Sik wanders.
Awards
The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 , where it received the special mention of the NETPAC Award for Asian Films.
In addition, the film received several awards at various international film festivals in 2001 : Suh Jung was named best actress at the Cinemanila International Film Festival ( Manila , Philippines ) . Kim Ki-duk won the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival ( Brussels , Belgium ) . And at Fantasporto ( Porto , Portugal ) Suh Jung received the International Fantasy Film Award for best actress, Ki-duk Kim the International Fantasy Film Special Jury Award, and the drama was also nominated for the International Fantasy Film Award for best film.
criticism
“In what is perhaps his most obsessive film, The Isle, Kim puts his characters in a kind of original state, lets man and woman meet in a paradisiacal lake landscape. However, the lovers only find each other in a language of cruelty. A half-filleted fish swimming around in the lake, fishhooks piercing the mouth and genitals - at the Venice Film Festival the audience passed out when the Isle was shown. "
“A mentally bold love film in which lyrical moments suddenly merge into terrifyingly brutal scenes. Without being interested in the psychology and motivation of his protagonists, he addresses the despair of two people with great seriousness, whereby he develops a peculiar pull. "
Trivia
Seom is not the name of the island, it is the Korean word for island .
Web links
- Seom - The Island in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Daniel Frick: Film review on asianfilmweb.de , accessed on November 6, 2012.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anke Leweke: Cruel souls . In: Die Zeit of March 18, 2004.
- ↑ Seom - The Island. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 22, 2017 .