Kim Ki-Duk
Moebius

A young boy is emasculated by his mother.

The simple summary of the plot of this "Moebius" (2013, out of competition at the Venice Film Festival) would be enough to make one understand how much the famous South Korean director Kim Ki-Duk has let success go to his head after last year's Golden Lion, incidentally won with Pietà, a raw and biting film that, in my humble opinion, is worthy of interest but far from brilliant or at least convincing.

Perhaps I might not exactly be considered an obsessed fan of his, yet I don’t recognize myself in the criticisms of those who, after the sublime 3-Iron, have not been able to appreciate anything: the much-maligned Time and The Bow, despite being full of self-references (not that they are the only ones) and so different from each other, are almost equally admirable compared to classics like Spring..., The Isle and the already mentioned 3-Iron. Going even further, the bizarre yet fascinating Breath succeeds in its aim to expand (without however continuing) Kim’s poetics, always characterized by pain and lyricism, love and struggle (both physical and otherwise).

Whether the downward trend started the day before yesterday, ten years ago, or never, it matters little because I’m sure that devotees, admirers, and critics could agree that "Moebius" is the worst episode in the director's filmography. What initially seemed to have been announced as a rather violent film (in Korea it was cut by 21 scenes), in the end, seems like nothing more than a disastrous and grotesque attempt to scandalize old ladies and prudes, with no communicative urgency or moral message to be detected behind this farcical display of circumstances nothing short of implausible; and even if we were to search hard for them, they would still be entirely unfounded.

On a directorial level, I find nothing worth noting either positive or negative; however, some events deserve mention: emasculated penises then swallowed, emasculated penises and transplanted but then demanded back again, emasculated penises then flattened by passing trucks, orgasms without penises, rapes without penises, masochistic self-pleasure with stones, incestuous masturbations, knives stuck in the back and then masturbated (?) with nonchalance, random breast reveal, people undressing all the time, many inconclusive if not downright ruinous self-references (including the unforgivable one to 3-Iron), the usual lack of dialogue this time compensated for by ridiculous Google searches (!) to advance the plot, a sea of nonsense and God (or rather, Buddha) only knows what else.

Arming himself with self-satisfaction and self-indulgence, the old Kim went out of his way to provoke his audience at all costs, but ended up portraying a remarkable, delirious self-parody with pseudo-familial, pseudo-psychoanalytic, and pseudo-religious implications. That's all.

A drama film more for its outcomes than its content. A mess that I would deem completely unwatchable if it had not managed to genuinely make me laugh more than once. Precisely due to the amusement it provided, I highly (dis)counsel it.