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Pieta
Goa Film Festival
Abhijit Ghosh-Dastidar
The 43rd International
Film Festival of India at Goa
(Nov/Dec 2012) mounted certifiably excellent films, built from compositions from World Cinema, tributes to Susan Blier and Kim ki-Duk, Trukish focus and Indian Panorama. Kim ki Duk’s ‘‘Pieta–Pity’’ (South Korea, colour, 104 mins) portrays a ruthless debt collector, Lee Kang-da, (Lee Jung-jin) who is cold blooded and violent. A crane is lowered around a factory worker’s neck, and he commits suicide, out of economic problems. A man in bed is engrossed in self indulgence. He has taken a loan of $ 30,000, but is unable to return the money. He quarrels with his wife, and has sex with a girl in the factory, the wife pleads with the loan shark Lee, and undresses. Lee whips the wife, and chops off the man’s hands with a machine blade. Maiming becomes the answer to irresponsible borrowing, and not paying up. Lee walks down the road with chicken in hand, and at home plays darts with knives. The young maid washes dishes and cleans up the house.
Another girl visits Lee and begs forgiveness, for coming late. In another neighbourhood, Lee walks a lane, filled with electronic junk. An old woman with a boy are at a small workshop factory. Lee gives packets of money at interest, ten times more. Lee slaps a man, and drags him to a high rise building under construction and throws him down. The injured man cries in pain and agony. An unknown girl has been observing, and takes all the blame. The loan agent stamps and breaks the leg joints of the man, completely. The girl brings eel fish to Lee’s house. The eel fish jumps around on the staircase, Lee writes a letter to his mother. He visits another factory for loan recovery. Debtors’ names appear on title cards, and in absence of bank accounts, Lee collects rabbits. The unknown woman had abandoned her baby, after birth, and now introduces herself as Lee’s mother. Lee puts his hands on the woman’s body, and has sex. A rabbit jumps out of the flat and is crushed by a car. The girl chops up the eel in the aquarium, and fires it. Violence returns. A worker wants to borrow an additional $30,000 and his right hand is chopped by a cutter. A debtor who sings and plays a guitar, offers his guitar. The loan agent stuffs a cloth on his mouth, and settles insurance claims. The debtor’s hands are cut off. Another debtor is forced to place his hands on machine blades. Overhead shot over neighbourhood slums and buildings provide respite to the bloodshed.
Death complicates claims. A debtor, though spared, jumps off building. The company, ‘Happy Private Loans’, involves money, love, honour, violence, fury, lust, revenge and death. Lee and the unknown girl go shopping. A debtor cripples on crutches, holds a knife on the neck of the girl. The girl bites the cripple’s hand, as Lee throws a knife at the crippled. Lee is in self indulgence, as the girl lies next to him. Unable to live alone, Lee fears that the girl will vanish. Lee visits his boss, and the boss slaps and drives him away. Returning home, Lee blows out candles lit by the girl. The girl becomes hysterical, and the room is ransacked. A debtor in a factory pees in his trousers. More debtors die for money. A debtor begs forgiveness on knees. Another man digs his own grave. Saplings grow by the river, while the road has blood trails and the body of a man. Without being a critique on capitalism, the characters in Kim ki-Duk’s film bemoan the evil of money. The film title evokes Michel-angelo’s sculpture ‘La Pieta’ with Jesus dead on Mary’s knees. However, Kim ki-Duk’s screenplay indiscriminately mixes Christian, Buddhist and shamianistic rituals. The violence tends to get lost in abstractions. ‘‘Pieta’’ follows vengeance with brutality, in a dynamic scenario.
Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 51, June 30 -Jul 6, 2013
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