Old Boy (Korea, 2003)

"Even though I'm no more than a monster - don't I, too, have the right to live?"

Oh Daesu

While the Japanese seem relatively timid in their portrayal of sexuality (with the exception of Oshima Nagisa of Gohatto/Taboo and The Empire of Senses's fame ... and well, hentai, but that doesn't really count), it is funny to see that Korean cinematographers on the other hand have a way of doing it that makes Oshima look tame. Sure, both societies are relatively conservative on those matters, but there aren't any Japanese equivalent to Plastic Tree or Sex is Zero (but I still wonder, would Itami Junzo have tried, had he remained alive?). But what can we say of the portrayal of rape and incest (two instances) in Old Boy?

Yes, we can forgive Old Boy from straying from its Kafkaesque start (where Oh Daesu, a family man, is sequestered without reason for 15 years) because the answers it provides are just as disturbing as the premises of the movie and because they open just as many questions, if not more. And to the reader of Wittgenstein, a funny way to see the last sentence of the Tractatus.