Bedevilled

Directed by: Chul-soo Yang

Starring: Seong-won Ji, Yeong-hai So, Min-ho Hwang

Synopsis:

Financial consultant Hae Won (Seong-won) is living the career girl’s dream in Seouls financial district. This of course means working relentlessly and refusing loans to desperate people. One night she witnesses a particularly nasty brutal assault on a young woman in the city center, but intimidated by the young thugs who did it, and also just not wanting to be concerned with the misery of others, she refuses point blank to come forward as a witness.

A conflict at work piles on the pressure to breaking point and her boss makes her take an involuntary holiday. Hae Won decides to return to Moo-Do, the tiny farming island where she grew up to hopefully escape the stresses of the city, and the criminals who know where she lives and works.

On the Island she is reunited with her childhood friend Bok Nam (Yeong-hai), and her daughter. Bok Nam’s life, the one Hae Won would have had if she had not gone to Seoul, is hard and joyless. Her Husband is an unfeeling brute, who horrifyingly has started to take an unhealthy interest in her daughter, and her ‘Aunts’ treat her like a slave.

Hae Won’s arrival stirs things up in the Island’s tiny community as Bok Nam shares with her the long kept desire of a better life at least for her daughter if not for herself, She implores Hae Won to take them to Seoul.

Frustration soon boils over into violence as Bok Nam struggles against the daily violence and intimidation of her Husband and ‘Aunts’.

Review:

This modern morality play is one of the more concise and economically paced Korean movies I have seen, and considering how many layers of meaning there are within it should definitely be considered as more than a simple revenge drama.

The relatively short seeming narrative seems to be closer to western dramas of the same ilk, while retaining the wonderful idiosyncrasies of Korean story telling. There is a large focus on domestic violence throughout and interestingly, similar brutalities are seen both in modern, forward-looking Seoul and the backward rural Moo Do Island.

Gender differences and the roles of Men and Women are hugely important to the understanding of our main characters. Bok Nam, living as an agricultural worker, tending beehives and fields of potatoes, raising a child, obeying her Neanderthal husband, seems to epitomize pre liberation struggle womanhood.Meanwhile Hae Won, living in the city, lectures a colleague early on that ‘A Flirt will only get so far in the financial world.’ And her life as a career financial consultant is seen as a lonely one where the pursuit of success comes at the cost of family life.

The moral of this tale has much to do with standing up for what you know to be right even if it endangers you. It’s the dilemma faced by Hae Won in the assault case and she soon finds herself facing the same dilemma on the Island. We see the cost of her fear and cowardice in the anguish of the assaulted girl’s relatives, and more subtly in every other decision she makes. With her luckless clients at work, and then more devastatingly on the island. Other characters also duck the challenge of standing tall. Bok Nam’s brother-in-law is a spineless weakling who you can tell is happy to scuttle around in his brother’s shadow, knowing that he is part of the cruelty.

The Lying Scheming aunts bolster each other and deceive to the point where you think they may believe what they are saying themselves rather than face the truth. And all of these things add up until the sheer dishonesty and moral weakness and unfairness of it begin to actually sicken the viewer, but worry not. Things are obviously going to be resolved in as messy a way as possible. When Bok Nam has been pushed to the absolute limit, and you think that her husband cannot possibly commit any worse acts of depravity, Bok Nam does indeed snap in the middle of a field of potatoes, under a scorching midday sun and Hae Won is forced to watch as she seeks to set things right.

Rarely have I seen a film of this kind in which the violence reflected absolutely the emotions of the perpetrator. Many such films go for the gore so quickly it becomes ridiculous. Not this movie, Bok Nam is perfect as the brutalized woman with nothing to lose, and the violence is awkward and fumbled and downright convincing. Mostly, there is a moment or two of ‘metaphorical’ blade licking which in all honesty was a bit Film School for my taste but considering how much the filmmakers were trying to say about Gender roles and the Male Psyche they can be forgiven for one or two ham fisted moments.

Verdict:

On the whole Bedevilled was a joy to watch. The villains are outrageous and brilliant, the story a heartfelt treatment of what is to my mind a vital contemporary issue, namely stand up to them when you see them crushing someone into the dirt or humiliating them. And not just because one day you may need someone to do it for you, but because of what it makes you if you don’t.

Enjoyable if occasionally grim and uncomfortable stuff.

8 out of 10 (Sulaco.)

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