Acacia
Dir. Ki-Hyung Park (2003, 102 min.)
This atmospheric creeper draws on subject matter that would seem better suited to a family drama: Mi-sook and Do-il, unable to conceive a child of their own, adopt the mysterious young Jin-Seung after Mi-sook is drawn to his eerie artwork. Although the child bonds with Do-il's father over the ailing acacia tree in the backyard, tension builds in the household: Mi-sook, conflicted about the adoption from the start and encouraged by her grinning, class-conscious meddler of a mother, begins to suspect that the boy is more sinister than he at first appears. When Mi-sook and Do-il miraculously do conceive a child "of their own blood" (TM Grandma), the fragile family unit rapidly degenerates as Mi-sook's conflicts with Jin-Seung culminate in the boy's disappearance.
The first act of the film pricks uncomfortably, and with a beautifully-drawn sadness and tension, at the themes of motherhood, privilege, guilt and otherness. Do-il is an obstetrician, delivering the babies that he's been denied at home -- a fact for which he clearly resents Mi-sook, try as he might to repress it. His father carves wood, and although he forms the closest bond with the adopted boy, there's a clear contrast drawn between his work with the dead remains of trees and Ji-Seung's instinctive, wild-child attraction to the living acacia. Mi-sook weaves, an occupation that was once the province and sustenance of the poor, but, in the couple's wealthy suburban enclave, acts as a mark of their success: there's no need for a second income to keep up their expensively decorated home. Weaving is also utilized as a substitute creative force, replacing the reproductive power that Mi-sook (not to mention her mother and her husband) clearly feels she lacks. Although Mi-sook is touched by Ji-Seung's fragility, she cannot get over her discomfort with his outsider status, a reminder of her own lack. She is unaccountably disturbed by any mention of Ji-Seung's prior life or the birth mother that haunts them both; and it is this inability to let Ji-Seung claim his own identity that results in their climactic argument and his disappearance.
After Ji-Seung vanishes, things only get worse for the family. Are the series of household mishaps that afflict them, each one more threatening than the last, supernaturally generated? Or is someone in the family losing their mind? Unfortunately, the film is so committed to guarding its (rather prosaic and pretty obvious) deep dark secret plot point that it devolves into near-incoherence in an attempt to keep us off-balance. Because the filmmakers are scared to peer too closely into the mind of any one character, lest we figure out who's nuts and who isn't, we become ever more detached from their travails and, by the time said plot point is revealed, have only a superficial interest in the fate of the family that was etched so promisingly in the beginning of the film.
The themes outlined at the beginning of the movie provide some great moments throughout. Mi-sook's weaving, in particular, is used to great effect both as a symbol and for a recurring, gorgeously creepy, visual. In the end, however, the only tragic loss the viewer will feel is of a smart premise and a good sense for subtle scares, wasted on a movie that doesn't quite trust itself to pull it all off.
My rating: 2 out of 5.
This atmospheric creeper draws on subject matter that would seem better suited to a family drama: Mi-sook and Do-il, unable to conceive a child of their own, adopt the mysterious young Jin-Seung after Mi-sook is drawn to his eerie artwork. Although the child bonds with Do-il's father over the ailing acacia tree in the backyard, tension builds in the household: Mi-sook, conflicted about the adoption from the start and encouraged by her grinning, class-conscious meddler of a mother, begins to suspect that the boy is more sinister than he at first appears. When Mi-sook and Do-il miraculously do conceive a child "of their own blood" (TM Grandma), the fragile family unit rapidly degenerates as Mi-sook's conflicts with Jin-Seung culminate in the boy's disappearance.
The first act of the film pricks uncomfortably, and with a beautifully-drawn sadness and tension, at the themes of motherhood, privilege, guilt and otherness. Do-il is an obstetrician, delivering the babies that he's been denied at home -- a fact for which he clearly resents Mi-sook, try as he might to repress it. His father carves wood, and although he forms the closest bond with the adopted boy, there's a clear contrast drawn between his work with the dead remains of trees and Ji-Seung's instinctive, wild-child attraction to the living acacia. Mi-sook weaves, an occupation that was once the province and sustenance of the poor, but, in the couple's wealthy suburban enclave, acts as a mark of their success: there's no need for a second income to keep up their expensively decorated home. Weaving is also utilized as a substitute creative force, replacing the reproductive power that Mi-sook (not to mention her mother and her husband) clearly feels she lacks. Although Mi-sook is touched by Ji-Seung's fragility, she cannot get over her discomfort with his outsider status, a reminder of her own lack. She is unaccountably disturbed by any mention of Ji-Seung's prior life or the birth mother that haunts them both; and it is this inability to let Ji-Seung claim his own identity that results in their climactic argument and his disappearance.
After Ji-Seung vanishes, things only get worse for the family. Are the series of household mishaps that afflict them, each one more threatening than the last, supernaturally generated? Or is someone in the family losing their mind? Unfortunately, the film is so committed to guarding its (rather prosaic and pretty obvious) deep dark secret plot point that it devolves into near-incoherence in an attempt to keep us off-balance. Because the filmmakers are scared to peer too closely into the mind of any one character, lest we figure out who's nuts and who isn't, we become ever more detached from their travails and, by the time said plot point is revealed, have only a superficial interest in the fate of the family that was etched so promisingly in the beginning of the film.
The themes outlined at the beginning of the movie provide some great moments throughout. Mi-sook's weaving, in particular, is used to great effect both as a symbol and for a recurring, gorgeously creepy, visual. In the end, however, the only tragic loss the viewer will feel is of a smart premise and a good sense for subtle scares, wasted on a movie that doesn't quite trust itself to pull it all off.
My rating: 2 out of 5.
posted by hilatron at 9:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home