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Real Fiction aka "Shilje sanghwang" (2000)
Dir: Ki-duk Kim
Ju Jin-mo (“Musa”) plays a down on his luck pavement Artist whose
life is one long trail of broken dreams, betrayals, failures and abuse.
He spends his time sitting in a plaza listening in to other people's phone conversations
at a nearby phone box, being ripped off by customers, taking insults about his
(supposed) bad drawing and generally getting a good kicking from a local gang
of thugs who ‘tax’ the people working in the plaza.
On the morning we meet him, the Artist is being filmed by a mysterious woman (Kim Jin-ah) who beckons him to follow her. She leads him to a deserted theatre (importantly showing a play called “Another Me”) where an Actor, as the woman films it all, attacks him and shoves a gun into his hands.
The Actor screams out all the injustices that have befallen him, but they are
the Artist’s injustices.
Listing the wrongs and the wrongdoers the Actor verbally pushes the Artist into
taking revenge on all those that have hurt him….
Ki-duk Kim is best known for the infamous sea-life snuff film “The Isle”
(a work of striking beauty and atmosphere but a generally tedious and needlessly
obscure exercise) and if that film’s controversy brings his other works
the attention outside of South Korea they would not otherwise receive it can
only be a good thing.
And in the case of “Real Fiction” the movie benefiting from “The
Isle” is far better than it.
The first thing to mention about the film is it’s completely bizarre production
history.
Ki-duk Kim pushed his cast and crew through 10 days of intensive rehearsals,
arranged all his camera set-ups on the day of filming (using ten 35mm and two
digital) and then basically unleashed his cast/crew onto the unexpecting streets
to create the movie in 3 hours, on one day, with no re-takes!
The other unusual aspect is that the film unravels in real time (see also Mike
Figgis‘s “Timecode”) and it’s this approach, combined with
the ‘live’ acting and filming that gives the film its edge and energy.
Ki-duk Kim’s screenplay seems very much to be a cathartic exercise. Kim was himself a street artist and, like one of the tales of abuse told by the Actor, was bullied during his time in the Army. It’s obvious that, whilst indeed carrying out a cinematic experiment, Ki-duk Kim was also putting his own experiences and painful history into the life of the Artist for very personal reasons.
There is nothing that subtle in the plot as far as the metaphors between Actor,
Artist (and outside of the actual film itself, the Director) go, but the initially
obscure character of the camcorder girl creates an intriguing exercise for the
audience as they, themselves, come to their own conclusions on what her part
is and how she is linked to the Artist.
There is violence here (some bloody shootings, a pretty nasty aftermath of a
beating) and sexuality (a totally unexpected bit of forced sexual manipulation,
a non-explicit sex scene and some subtle nudity) but also some wonderfully emotive
sequences and interestingly ambiguous victims of the Artist’s revenge.
A scene between the Artist and the girl that left him to (unsuccessfully) marry
his best friend is surprisingly tender and heartfelt and puts a very grey shade
to the revenge because whereas some of the targets are pretty much straightforward
villains and/or generally unpleasant some, like this girl, elicit our sympathy.
We discover (both second hand and, explicitly, first hand) of her dour existence
and dismay at how her life has turned out and she almost pleads with the Artist
to rescue her. She has already been ‘punished’ by the very actions
that made her a target for revenge in the first place.
The same goes for her ex-husband who is struggling in a dead end job and is
having to bare the brunt of his crooked boss’s wrath. In fact he is shown
to be the only honest and honourable person in the place! We understand the
Artist’s wrath and yet we are shown that there is so little left in many
of his protagonists lives that his revenge is basically impotent.
Or, in the case of the bullying soldier, they actually have something in their
life that seems to have changed them and has offered a chance of redemption,
in this case his Wife’s unborn child.
With a lean running time, an excellent and haunting score by Sang-yun Jeon, a suitably intense performance byJu Jin-mo, some interesting characters and ideas and a fascinating production history “Real Fiction” offers the discerning Asian film junkie much to enjoy, and even if the twist is well signposted (though still profound in it's irony) and the script hampered by the odd plot hole, Ki-duk Kim has achieved something far more interesting than “The Isle” and ultimately far more satisfying as well.
Released by the fledgling UK branch of ‘Tai Seng Entertainment’,
“Real Fiction” has been given a nice anamorphic transfer, with a crisp
5:1 Korean mix and clear English subtitles and the only downside is the lack
of extras, as I‘m sure the unusual production schedule would make for some
interesting stories. Extras or not though, it’s a purchase worth making
for the adventurous Asian movie collector..