Recommendation of the Week (24/04): Bedevilled

Its not often that I see a film that operates on two distinct levels that are polar opposites in terms of genre but manages to be successful at both. I’m talking about the kitchen sink plight of women drama and the slasher movie of course and Bedevilled executes both strands of its Dna with aplomb. This film is on a par with the work of Jee Woon Kim as an example of the greatness coming out of South Korea these days.

The film begins with uptight Seoul bank clerk Hae Won (Seong Won Ji) having witnessed a woman being attacked in the street and not done anything, subsequently due to intimidation by the criminals she refuses to identify the attackers. Hae Won gets calls from a childhood friend Bok Nam (Yeong Hie Soo) who pleads with her to come and visit, Hae Won ignores these calls until the day she snaps and strikes a co worker who uses her feminine wiles to get ahead. She is ordered to take some vacation time and heads to the island where she grew up whilst visiting her grandfather as a child to visit Bok Nam and get away from the busy city. The island is a backward and primitive place, making their money from fishing and honey production, the inhabitants live in shacks and have very little to do. Bok Nam lives with her abusive husband, the daughter she has whose father she does not know and her husbands oafish brother. This family makes up the youngest people on the island, the rest of the inhabitants are old ladies and a mute older man. The women look down on Bok Nam, expecting her to behave and tow the line to look after the young men who are the two the others have to depend on. Bok Nam is repeatedly beaten and humiliated by her husband who brings prostitutes to the island to use for his own gratification, she is also raped by her brother in law whilst the rest of the island turns a blind eye. With Hae Won’s arrival Bok Nam sees the chance for something new, seeking to rediscover some of the innocence of their idyllic childhood spent on the island and make good on Hae Won’s childhood promise to take Bok Nam to the big city. Hae Won is cold at first but gradually warms to Bok Nam again although she is shocked at how bad she is treated by the island and how she stands for it. Whilst on the island a tragedy occurs that essentially strips Bok Nam of the one thing she had to live for and again Hae Won turns a blind eye to an injustice in the world having previously ignored Bok Nam’s pleas for help. The inhabitants of the island then learn that there are limits to what a woman can take. To say anything else of the plot would be a disservice to you dear reader, part of the joy of this movie is the major shift between genres that occurs and seeing how it plays out, going from tragedy to slasher movie and then back to tragedy. The performances of the two leads are excellent, Yeong Hie Soo makes you feel every humiliation and the pain inside her, Seong Won Ji manages to make an unlikeable character sympathetic and gets some of the films best moments towards the end of the movie. The actors playing the town elders and Bok Nam’s family are all really good at playing horrid but also then very good at playing a shocked victim when the story requires it.

I complained in my review of the I Spit On Your Grave remake that the film seemed like it had very little to say despite on the surface seeming to be ‘about’ something and this made me feel guilty for enjoying the killing when it began. Bedevilled redresses this balance somewhat and manages to be about two things despite also having some great gore. One is the plight of women in some areas of the world where the sexes are not equal and there is great injustice. Like it or not places like this exist, maybe not so much in the west anymore but definitely in Asia where countries are only now becoming credible economic entities and embracing democracy. The second is a more universal and daily occurrence, turning a blind eye to injustice and how that effects not just the world but your own soul. With all the bad things people do to each other in the modern world its often easier to look the other way instead of standing up for your fellow human being and saying ‘I will not accept this’. The character of Hae Won learns this too late and pays the price, the final scenes will make anyone who has a heart weep and this film may well be a feminist masterpiece.

Bedevilled is an anomaly, a film that blends two things that should not work and uses them to become something of a minor miracle. Director Chul Yoo-Sang joins the ranks of Park Chan Wook and Jee Woon Kim as one of the most interesting filmmakers working in South Korea today.

by Chris Holt

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