Taking a minor divergence from SIFF, I decided to see a movie. I know… I know… Everyone is seeing Thor this weekend. I was very tempted, but I had another movie in my sight.
I’m a big fan of two of Ki-duk Kim’s movies – Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… And Spring and also 3-Iron. Both movies have extremely concise dialogue and have a beautiful quietness about them. It is more important to view with your eyes, than with your ears. If you were to close your eyes while watching either movie, it would quickly bore you since a good portion of the film is almost silent. Both movies also affect me strongly emotionally, 3-Iron more so. 3-Iron hits me more on the personal level and always makes me cry.
So I was very excited to see that The Grand Illusion Theater was showing Breath (Soom). I walked away not so excited. It is definitely the weakest of his movies. He kind of tried to follow some of the same formula, but it really failed in this movie. It was okay, but in no way is it the same league as the other two. I’m extremely disappointed and walked away thinking that the guy in the prison obviously sucked at killing himself. You would think stabbing yourself multiple times with a sharp object in the throat would do the trick, but not in his case.
