Pieta (2012)

Gang-Do: What is money?
Mi-Son: Money? The beginning and end of all things. Love, honor, violence, fury, hatred, jealousy, revenge, death.

More evidence that South Korea can consistently deliver movies that are challenging, inventive and disturbing, comes in the shape of Ki-duk Kim's Pieta. Its title is an obvious reference to Michaelangelo's statue of the same name, that depicts the Madonna holding the corpse of Jesus after his crucifixion. Religious intentions aside, this is a striking image of motherhood confronted by the death of her martyred child. The statue shows Mary strangely distanced from the event, neither hysterical nor angry. She simply holds her son's corpse, and seems lost to emotion. Has she simply accepted that this is the way it must be? As if she always knew the outcome?

Kim's movie deals with a superficially similar relationship between mother and son. It also deals with sacrifice, martyrdom, and the inevitability of a predetermined outcome, but unlike Michaelangelo's statue, it also deals with vengeance. The subject of vengeance seems to be strong in South Korea's modern cinema. Think of Jee-woon Kim's I Saw The Devil (also released in 2010), and Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance) and you'll see what I mean. As powerful a group of stories about vengeance as you could collect, and all demonstrating that getting even is often deadly for both sides. This is epic, legendary stuff, and all set in contemporary South Korea.

Pieta portrays a world of grim, grinding poverty, among the metal-workers of a Korean city. These struggling no-hopers inhabit a squalid landscape of dirty back alleys and lock-ups, performing body and mind-numbing piece-work tasks at lathes and die-stampers in filthy conditions. They are poor yet there seems to be no help for them. Their only hope, if you can call it that, is to borrow money at exorbitant rates from loan sharks. This is where Gang-Do comes in. Played with unnerving menace by Jung-Jin Lee, Gang-Do is a collector. He is also a mutilator, and a deeply damaged, deeply callous individual. He moves like a shark, relentless, and without mercy, performing acts of astonishing brutality in a contemptuous, methodical fashion.

Jung-Jin Lee as Gang-Do

When the debtor can no longer pay, Gang-Do causes the unfortunate to have an accident with some of their own machinery. If they lose a finger or a hand, the insurance pay-out is enough to cover the debt. The sharks get their money and leave a cripple behind, a man who cannot work and cannot earn money. It seems that if there is a safety net in Korea, it is a very long way down. 

Gang-Do goes about his business, hurting people and taking no pleasure in anything, except a crafty wank under the covers. His life is a pointless cycle of empty wandering through slums, with only the inflicting of pain as a career. Not a happy man. In fact, he is a permanent walking sneer at anything like happiness or normality. Then one day, a middle-aged woman appears, and claims to be his mother.

Min-soo Jo as Mi-Son

I don't think it's fair to go past this point, plot-wise, as the whole film pivots on the question of whether Mi-Son (yes, that's the character's name. I suppose it's an in-joke, although I don't know much about the Korean language) is really Gang-Do's mother or not. If you get a chance to watch this movie, you should. One thing I have said a number of times about Korean cinema is this: unless you've seen this movie, you've never seen a movie like this before. A masterpiece of grimness, with outstanding performances, great cinematography, and an unpredictable plot. Recommended.