THE ISLE

THE ISLE

Love stories can be a constant bane for admirers of dark, twisted and extreme cinema, especially when they come from the mainstream of Hollywood. Prettified actors, close-up tears and unearned emotion turn celluloid into confectionary. Thankfully, for those into it, THE ISLE is neither from Hollywood nor is it cute. Although a love story, it comes from a far tougher breed. A film of intense emotions, this Korean gem dares to tackle the idea of failed communication with brutal visual commitment.

Living and working at a fishing retreat, mute Hee-Jin drifts through her mundane existence selling fishing bait, giving boat rides and doing various odd jobs. Lonely and isolated, she regularly sells her body to make ends meet but longs to make a real emotional connection. After an ungrateful customer insults her following sex, she swims to his float later on. While the man defecates alone, she pulls him under the water and stabs him.

Going through her routine, Hee-Jin is drawn to the disturbed Hyun-Shik, who lives on one of the floats. On the run after killing his girlfriend, Hyun-Shik is haunted by flashbacks of the encounter. About to shoot himself, he is stopped when an underwater Hee-Jin distracts him with a fishing hook that cuts his leg. Soon after, the two communicate tentatively, but when they finally establish a connection the unbalanced bloke tries to rape her.

After she rebuffs him, Hyun sends for a prostitute, making the local lass somewhat jealous. As tensions simmer, the police abruptly turn up and Hyun tries to kill himself by swallowing…a handful of fishing hooks! Hee-Jin quickly discovers him, but has to hide him beneath the toilet hatch, underwater. Pulling him up when the coast is clear, with a fishing rod, she resuscitates him and uses pliers to clear his raw bloody throat.

When the prostitute reappears, having taken a fancy to Hyun, Hee-Jin ties her up and accidentally drowns her. When the whore's violent pimp turns up for his investment, Hyun kills the man in self-defence, and the two loners cover up the crimes and stay together. But when Hyun cowardly threatens to abandon her, Hee-Jin performs an act of self-mutilation even more distressing than Hyun's throat incident…

Austere and melancholy, THE ISLE wisely avoids the excessive stylisation that typifies recent Korean horror, instead favouring a barren, naturalistic approach. Restricted for the most to a single watery setting, director Kin Ki-Duk wisely focuses on strongly etched characters. Using a doubling approach, he links the two oddball (but not unattractive) loners from the get-go. Although seeking to connect with the other, they both, interestingly, carry on having sex with other people - Hee-Jin paid by the locals and Hyun-Shik easing his neurosis with cheap girly sluts.

Given the preponderance of water - which we see in every long shot and hear rippling throughout - the two protagonists are frequently evoked as fish-like. A strong underwater swimmer, Hee-Jin uses this ability to sort out those who have irked her, and both lovers suffer dreadful internal injuries caused by hooks, and have to be painfully dragged from the water by fishing rods. In a keen visual flourish, we often see them framed through water. The camera peers up at them through the rippling waves, linking them together in subtle ways, instead of being overly emphatic.

As Hee-Jin, Jung Suh gives one of the finest mute performances since Warren Oates graced the brutal COCKFIGHTER (1973, Monte Hellman): and her evocative, hard features make her a captivatingly strong main character. Visuals manage to captivate despite limited settings, and changes in the weather - rain, wind, and sunbursts - add both variety and lyricism. Aided by confrontational violence that is integral to the story yet truly shocking, THE ISLE is proof that the best love stories aren't soppy, but harsh, bloody and brutal.

Although given a neat 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, and heaped with good extras - interviews with cast and crew, director's profile, music featurette, Asia Extreme Trailer Reel and the usual behind the scenes footage - the film was subject to 1 min, 44 seconds worth of cuts, including cruelty done to a fish. The offending scene involves a float resident biting a chunk of meat off a live one, before letting it carry on living and struggling on (like the protagonists). Relevant to the film's essence, this is also highly topical since recent research that has established reason to believe that fish do feel significant pain (as part of the ongoing call for a ban on fishing).

Review by Matthew Sanderson


 
Released by Tartan
Rated 18 - Region 0 (PAL)
Extras :
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