Seom (2000) Reviews

• Float Your Boat?

  Ali_John_Catterall2004-09-07

  There are two immutable truths in matters of the heart. None more desirable than those who do not want you; none less desirable than those you could possess with ease. Somewhere between these two axioms fall the doomed lovers of this spellbinding offering. Beautiful Hee-Jin (Jung) is the grounds keeper for a dingy Korean fishing resort, selling snacks, bait, her tits 'n' ass, to the tourists she ferries between flotillas of fishing huts. Fugitive Hyun-Shik (Yoo-Suk) shows up one day, shivering, suicidal, utterly alone. Another lost soul, Hee-Jin's smitten because, unlike her sleazy clientèle, Hyun-Shik's different. He doesn't abuse her or make fun of her muteness. And he fashions exquisite little wire sculptures for her, as they study one another across the rain-spattered lake. He in his unreachable desolation, she in her shore-side cabin, cat-like and inscrutable. The first time he tries to kill himself, by swallowing fishing hooks, she brings him back to life – to love – the only way she knows. From suicide to sex in three minutes. And nobody is going to get in her way. Director Kim Ki-duk, responsible for surprise Art-house hit Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring, has crafted another beautiful-horrible movie; gorgeous to look at, and often between splayed fingers. It's as minimal and soulful as a haiku. And as painful as falling in love

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• Very painful view of relationships

  rosscinema2003-03-12

  This is definitely not a film for all tastes. "The Isle" not only shows some of the most disturbing images on film but it also makes the viewer work hard to try and figure out what it all means. Especially the very last scene which I think was put there for each viewer to make they're own interpretation, as Kubrick did for the end of "2001, A Space Odyssey". Suh Jung plays Hee-Jin who rents out floating fish cabins and supplies bait, food and prostitutes. She also is a prostitute and she never utters a single word in the film. Some have called her character a mute but towards the end of the film she screams so I am thinking her silence might be of her own doing! She is attracted to one of the renters who is suicidal and is hiding out. Suh Jungs performance is very strong and its difficult to carry a film without speaking a word and the actor has to rely to a great length on how well and interesting the story is. Her performance reminds me of Isabelle Huppert in "The Piano Teacher". The amount of pain between the two characters is what they have in common. This is a film about relationships in a very strange setting with two strange people. Each character has a scene involving fish hooks and when they take place its up to the other character to try and ease the pain. Good cinematography with shots of the lake at dawn or sunset with mist and fog on the water. Very tough film to view with all the self mutilation and animal cruelty. For those of you who have viewed Asian films before then you should check out this very well made film.

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• Fishermen's worst beautiful nightmare - and everyone else's, too

  Bogey Man2002-07-17

  Seom aka The Isle is written and directed by Korean film maker Ki-duk Kim. This bizarre film tells about happenings in strange fishing resort in which fishermen live and fish in floating cabins at daytime, and have fun and sex with local prostitutes at night time. The film's protagonist is an attractive, but very mysterious female (Suh Jung) who never talks, and works as some kind of "boat girl" who gets the food and prostitutes for the fishermen and other similar activities with her little boat. There is minimal amount of dialogue in The Isle, and it is hard to describe this ultra bizarre film after just one viewing. The visuals are very astonishing and stunning as the settings are so atmospheric and natural. The calm mist and smoke above the water is very moody and even surreal, and this all is intensified even further by great use of camera, occasionally very weird angles and total feel of peace and magic. Blue is the main color in the film, and it is equally brilliant-looking as in many Hong Kong thrillers like Dr. Lamb by Danny Lee and Red to Kill by Billy Tang. The colors are always fantastic in Asian films, and The Isle once again proves and shows this. This film is a delight to the eye..at least before the infamous scenes involving fishing hooks. The director has said that he wanted to depict relationships between men and women with this film, and that the film tells something about how dependent were are on each other, and especially on another sex. Once the first horrific "hook scene" comes, the only cure for his pain is the main female, who by giving him carnal pleasure, takes away or diminishes his pain - and vice versa later in the film. I think that this film is more feminist since the very surreal closing scene is so underlining as the man finally finds the "truth" and source of all life. Another reviewer thought that the end scene is gratuitous and only there to confuse things even further, and that may be the case, but still I want to interpret it as above, and it is very personal scene in depicting that eternal truth. Seeing is believing... I think there's lot more than just this in the core of The Isle. The film really tells something about the relationship between humans and nature and nature's sources. There are many scenes depicting man exploiting nature and its inhabitants, and I think that the forthcoming scenes of mutilation are also symbolic as things turn upside down: humans become the victims of what they have practised and see the results. At this point, it is necessary to stress that there are many scenes of actual killing and off putting abuse of animals (mainly fish) which I, also, think are gratuitous since the message of the film is pretty hard to take since the film does the same exploitations it depicts committed by its characters. Then again, the killings show the real face of our world, since in order to stay alive, we have to use nature's resources and there's nothing wrong in that. So what's wrong in my opinion is that the animals in The Isle are not killed without pain and suffering, and that is not right nor human since I think that no living creature should die painfully or tortured. I wanted to think that the animals were not mutilated and killed in the film for real, but it all looks sadly too real. Still, I have to find the film's merits even though it becomes far more difficult when I remember these "animal snuff" scenes, that are unnecessarily explicit, albeit meant to be symbolic, which they of course are, if one can still accept this after the horrific imagery. This film reminded me pretty much of Japanese film Naked Blood, which also is very beautiful and surreal film, but soon the horrific scenes of self mutilation and ultra splatter are on screen before the viewer's eyes. The self mutilations committed by fish hooks in The Isle are very gruelling to say the least, so this film will make the weakest viewers faint, as many festival screenings have proven. They are so sickeningly effective I wanted to stop thinking about what it would feel like to actually do something like that. Fish hooks are very small, but like Stuart Gordon has said (about the finger biting moment in Re-Animator), the smallest things may be the most horrific in many cases. These fish hooks really are symbolic as the humans are "turned to fishes" and get to see what they've done and created. The Isle is very weird, bizarre, calm and also disturbing piece of cinema, and only minority of cinema lovers will stomach and appreciate films like The Isle. As I stressed earlier, I am sorry about the fact of animal mutilation presented in the film, and without those scenes, I would probably give more stars in the rating. Now it gets little less even if I wanted to give it more as a piece of art. 8/10 and to understand more about this film, it has to be seen many times since it unfolds pretty slowly.

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• Challenges the audience to work for their reward, but pays off if you make it

  simon_booth2002-03-17

  Another movie that has attained a little notoriety from the number of walk-outs at festival screenings, and even a couple of audience members passing out. Whilst it is not hard to see why, it is a shame that is what the film is known for, as there is much more to it than *those* scenes. A mute girl makes a living running a kind of retreat, where men can rent a floating cabin on a lake in the mountains and spend their days fishing, and their nights sleeping with prostitutes. The mute girl makes ends meet by taking on this role as well. A young man arrives and rents a cabin, clearly not their for the fish. We see that he is tortured and suicidal - you wouldn't guess why from the 5 second flashback that is meant to explain it, but the 'filmography' section of the DVD explains it in more detail. The mute girl is drawn to the man's desperation, perhaps feeling sympathy/protectiveness, or perhaps simply relating to another deeply unhappy soul. The relationship between these two characters, and several other characters that come to the lake for one reason or another, is the main focus of the film. The difficulty some people have with relationships is the topic being studied, particularly when they are not happy in their relationship with themselves. The inner feelings of the characters receive expression in scenes whose 'shock factor' has drawn inevitable comparisons with Takashi Miike, especially AUDITION. Director Kim Ki Duk doesn't seem to mind these comparisons: "KK: I saw Audition at Toronto and that movie made me realize that there is someone else out there like me. We are two of a kind" If you couldn't sit through the last half hour of AUDITION, you'll probably want to give THE ISLE a miss too. It's also definitely not a film for animal lovers... there is absolutely zero chance of the film being released intact in the UK or the US, as the treatment of the animals in the film (mainly fish) is far outside what is permissible in either country's regulations. But there is much more to THE ISLE than the scenes that make keeping your eyes on screen a challenge. In between, the film is absolutely ravishing, and will keep your eyes glued there. The setting of the lake, mostly bathed in deep fog, and the fantastic wordless performance from actress Jung Suh (and the rest of the cast) are beautiful and powerful. The loneliness and sadness of the characters is reflected brilliantly in the total isolation of the floating cabins. There is a deep message in the film, and it is presented to us beautifully. Like Miike, Kim Ki-Duk makes us work for our reward when we watch THE ISLE... if you want to take away the beauty of his film, you have to be willing to pay the price of the horror. Thoroughly recommended! One note: the film is another one of those great films that just doesn't know how to end itself. Actually, we get the perfect ending... a nice long shot and a fade to white and it should have been over, but apparently Kim Ki Duk wasn't quite satisfied to leave it at that and tacks on two extra scenes, about a minute of footage, that are simply inexplicable and serve only to confuse and spoil the mood. My recommendation... when it fades to white, simply stop the DVD

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• I don't know what to think

  Speechless2002-11-19

  The Isle is a hard film to evaluate. It pulls the viewer's emotions in every different conceivable direction, from empathy to outright horror and everything in between. After it ended I wasn't sure if I was going to cry or to throw up; I didn't know if I was sad or happy or hopelessly angry. Either way, the film's images will probably haunt me for many years to come. The film is beautifully photographed, making excellent use of the isolated fishing lake setting. All of the actors are perfect, even in scenes more painfully grotesque than anything I've seen in a film before. I simply cannot imagine the artistic process that went on during production-- how did the filmmakers raise the money to make this film, and how did they direct the actors to create such convincing performances from such outlandish material? And whose idea was it to end it like that? I loved many things about this film, but I find it hard to recommend because of a few scenes involving really heartless animal cruelty. A fish is mutilated and partially eaten while it's still alive; a dog is yanked around by its collar and slapped; another fish is jolted with electrodes. Of course the humans in the film suffer much worse misfortunes, but the characters mostly deserve what they get, whereas the animals do not. Also, the scenes of human violence are created using makeup effects, but the animals have no such luck-- as far as I can tell, they're really slicing flesh off a live fish and eating it. All I can really say is, see The Isle and make up your own mind about it. It will cause completely different individual reactions in every single member of the audience, and if you love it, good for you. If you hate it, I think I can understand why.

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