3-Iron
Dan Fainaru in Venice 10 September 2004
Dir/scr/prod/ed: Kim Ki-duk. S Kor. 2004. 89mins.
An arthouse favourite, now firmly established after last years Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
And Spring, Kim Ki-duks reputation will be enhanced by his latest work, which is less extreme but no less intriguing.
Coming only seven months after Kim won Best Director at Berlin for Samaritan Girl, this sleek, elegant, stylised feature shows how the maverick director has had his ruffled feathers smoothed down even more.
A strikingly good-looking love story that suggests social rebellion before turning into a super-natural reflection on reality versus imagination, its festival future is firmly secure after 3-Irons reception at Venice, where it played as a surprise film in competition. Commercial prospects seem better than they ever were for Kims earlier films.
Tae-suk (Jae Hee) wanders around the city on his motorcycle, pinning flyers on doors. After several days he comes back to check if they have been removed; if not then he concludes the owner of the flat is absent and breaks in, settling down comfortably as if it were his own home. But his purpose is not to steal. Rather he washes up and even fixes broken things he finds before disappearing just before the occupants return.
<**edited for possible spoilers**>
Spare and economical, Kims film language evolves here into a finely tuned, imaginatively orchestrated, purely visual form of storytelling. The bright, sharp, luminous images of meticulously planned shots, combined with some stunning still photography, explained away by Sun-hwas modelling past, require little, if any, dialogue to spin their tale.
Each of the sets is carefully designed, and every one of the apartments that the protagonists breaks into has a very distinct character of its own, implying all we need to know about the unseen occupants living there.
Jae Hees youthful toughness and unwavering determination, coupled with Lee Seung-yeons bruised fragility combine to portray a magical relationship in which words are unnecessary, a tender, touching love story that is suitably accompanied by Slvians warm, voluptuous Middle Eastern style of music.
Kim Ki-duks painstaking insistence that every detail on screen look perfectly solid and real is greatly responsible for the eerie feeling of the last act, which makes some farfetched interpretations. It is all reason enough to go back and watch the film again.
