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Rating:
THE REVIEW
Plot
South Korea, 2012. Kang-do is a thirty-year-old orphan who grew up in the suburbs of Seoul, becoming a sadist working for a loan shark. His job is to visit this man's clients to collect the money they owe, and if they don't settle their debts, as almost always happens, he inflicts severe physical harm on them to collect the owed money thanks to an injury insurance the clients are forced to sign before concluding the transaction. One day, Kang-do notices he is being followed by a middle-aged woman, whom he harshly drives away every time. This woman eventually confesses to him that she is his mother, who abandoned him as a newborn because she was very young and afraid to keep him. The man doesn't know whether to believe her, but in the long run, he becomes convinced of the woman's sincerity.,,
Pietà is a highly dramatic film. There is never any laughter. There's no hope; instead, anguish and pain constantly, inevitably rise.
Around them, the damned loan shark son of a dog will have to face his misdeeds. Now that he has found his mother, he is embarking on the path toward redemption by retracing the bloody trail he left behind.
The squalor, degradation, and poverty of Seoul’s suburbs and its desperate humanity, the crippled made such by Kang-do, frame this terrible film by Kim Ki-duk.
The money.
Always them.
The cursed money that marks the daily life and orchestrates life's feelings: hate, love, greed, compassion, revenge.
Your life is a joystick, and the hand that moves it at will is money.
The direction is sparse. Tight shots, neutral photography. There's no sun, no sea, no children running and playing in the fields, no American smiles beaming with 100 teeth.
At a certain point, there's a landscape, just a few seconds... and one of the paralyzed victims of the loan shark, admiring it from his wheelchair, realizes (too late) that this is life...
A symbolic, cruel film that halfway through lays its cards on the table ...but anyway the player wasn't keeping them well hidden, the plot twist is not the important thing, if you’re not a fool, you knew what was going on...
Golden Lion at Venice in 2012.
***here too there is money, a metaphor of power, of consideration. They are the stars and the de-rank***
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Summary by Bot
Kim Ki-Duk’s Pietà paints a relentlessly grim portrait of a loan shark entangled in violence and poverty in suburban Seoul. The film explores themes of pain, guilt, and redemption through tight, sparse direction and stark imagery. Money is depicted as a cruel force that drives human emotions and destiny. Although bleak and without hope, the film’s powerful symbolism and narrative earned it the Golden Lion at Venice in 2012.
Kim Ki-Duk
South Korean film director and screenwriter known for minimalist dialogue, visual lyricism, and stark explorations of pain, love, and spirituality. His films include 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring; Pietà won the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival. Active from the late 1990s until 2020.07 Reviews
Other reviews
By RIBALDO
The money. Always them. The damned money that marks the daily life and conducts the orchestra of life and its feelings: hate, love, greed, compassion, revenge.
Your life is a joystick, and the hand that moves it at will is money.
