Pieta (Kim Ki-duk, 2012): South Korea

Reviewed by Emma Karlsson. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.

Pieta is the South Korean Avant-Garde director Kim Ki-Duk’s 18th film. Ki-duk is known for his films’ shock-factor; how he masters to display the art of suffering in a subtle but yet disturbing way. Pieta follows Ki-Duk’s classical style of film making, taking it to another level when it comes to the display of tabus and sins. Pieta was especially acknowledged at the Venice International Film Festival where it took home the Golden Lion award.

Pietà as a title stands for pity in Italian. Pietà is also the name of the famous sculpture of Virgin Mary holding Jesus after the crucifixion made my Michelangelo back in 1498-99. The film’s poster imitates this sculpture, where the film’s Virgin Mary / Mother holds the “dying” son, Kang-Do.

Kang-Do (Lee Jung-jin) is introduced as a lonely, cold-hearted man who walks around the narrow slum as a shadow; a threat. Kang-Do works for a loan company that lends out money to the less-fortunate families living in tiny garage-like “houses” surviving on small machine-centered businesses. When the loaners are unable to pay back Kang-Do in time, he uses enough physical violence to cripple the loaners. Suddenly a woman starts stalking Kang-Do, she claims to be his long-lost mother (Jo Min-su) who abandoned Kang-Do at an early age. At first Kang-Do is very suspicious, but later accept his mother. We see the mother and son’s bond grow stronger and stronger, till the point where Kang-Do admits to not being able to survive if the mother left him again. Kang-Do starts to appreciate life, and feels regretful and sad knowing how much pan he has caused. He wants to start over. However, people are not as forgiving – they want revenge.

Ki-Duk uses dead animals as a symbol for Kang-do’s inability to feel human emotions. Kang-do seems to be living his life like a sly street cat keeping an eye on his neighborhood. Other symbols are industrial machines, reflecting Kang-Do’s almost machine-like heart. In Kang-Do’s apartment on a dart board hangs a picture of a dark-haired, naked woman. Every time Kang-Do enter his apartment he throws his knife, his most precious item, straight through the picture. It is suggested that because Kang-do never experienced the love of a mother he grew up to form a misogynist view point. He doesn’t have a girlfriend or any woman he cares for; instead he has a weird (to say the least) relationship with sex and most probably love.

What’s interesting to me is Ki-duk’s references to the slasher genre. I don’t know if it’s intentional, or if it’s just me. Basically Pieta IS a slasher. The mentally ill (due to early traumas in his life), sexually confused, misogynist protagonist who uses a knife representing penetration. In a weird way our psycho-protagonist transforms into an anti-hero who some of us start to sympathize with. We even have a final girl, his mother, a character who is literally a reference to the standard “virgin” girl (from the poster’s and title’s indication that the mother is representing Virgin Mary) who has to adapt masculine behaviors in order to survive. Basically Ki-duk took America’s beloved genre the slasher, mixed it with his “sick” way of film making and created a masterpiece that beats all the other current slasher films out there. Bear in mind, Pieta isn’t a genre film; but it is the closest Ki-duk has gotten to one in my opinion.

Also, the acting is by far the best I saw at the festival. All the awards to Lee Jung-jin and Jo Min-su.