Now that Pixelmatsch has taken upon the task of finishing the dreadful blog posting, I can now proceed onto our last movie, a Korean one yet again! Harr harr.
This time, we went to the CineStar, which leaves us with only the Urania, the Berlinale Palast and the Friedrichstadtpalast that we did not go to. How sad. The CineStar indeed is not as good as the CUBIX and I agree that original versions should run in the CUBIX instead of the CineStar. Oh well, who knows, maybe one day there will be a good German movie coming up that we can watch in the CUBIX then.
Jangryesigeui member (Members of the Funeral)
South Korea 2008, Baek Seung-Bin, 100′
The critics seem to agree that “My Dear Enemy” is the best Korean movie of this festival. I would agree but add that “Members of the Funeral” comes pretty close. To be exact, the two movies are very difficult to compare – the one is about a perfectly normal love relationship and the other about, well, a completely abnormal family.
The film starts at the funeral of a boy, and a family is introduced as the ‘members of the funeral’. Mother and daughter seem to hate each other and the father is completely alienated from them. Throughout the film, these family members’ backgrounds are shown, and especially their encounters with death. At the same time, the story of the dead boy and the three family members are told: All three of them are fascinated by him in their own way; the father who is gay and tries to become a sugar daddy for the boy, the mother who aspires to become a novelist and takes an interest in his novel (namely “Members of the Funeral”) and the daughter who simply falls in love with him and his weirdness.
Compared to “My Dear Enemy”, I suppose that there is much less identification potential: While I could totally relate to both characters in “My Dear Enemy”, my own family is actually disgustingly sane and normal, and I also do not have a particular relation to death. However, I think that “Members of the Funeral” is more sophisticated in many ways.
First, I think that the techniques of storytelling in “Members of the Funeral” is quite interesting (I only disliked the end). I like how the whole story is a flashback, and there are multiple flashbacks within the flashbacks. Although all the characters only interact with the boy and not with each other, you can see how the story comes together.
Second, I find the novels mentioned in the film quite well chosen. I especially loved how the boy up “Death in Venice” at the bookstore while shopping with the father. While I do not think that Agatha Christie is a great novelist and generally am not a big fan of crime and mystery books, I approve of most of the other choices (except the Koreans which I did not know). Speaking of book selection, I am surprised to see so many foreign titles. I think this is an indication that “Members of the Funeral” is yet another film made to reach a foreign audience. (Would Koreans actually like a movie that uses swearwords and shows penises so much?)
Apart from the characters, the only thing that places “My Dear Enemy” over “Members of the Funeral” is the fact that I was a little disappointed by the end. I didn’t really expect a surprising revelation or anything, but I have hoped for a little more interaction between the family members. Basically, the setting was given from the start and for me, the story ended at the point where the boy died. Especially the story arc with “the fourth family member” was totally unnecessary and did not add anything to the story in my opinion. But why did he exactly do this? What is the aftermath of his death for the family? Are they just going to never talk about it and forget him? Unlikely.
Finally, I am actually not sure whether I would recommend the movie (mainly because I remember that there were parts I have rather disliked), but I surely have found it to be inspirational in some ways. Summa summarum I’d say I recommend it.