Beautifully made fatuity

Rating: 3/10 (27 August 2009)

Oldboy didn't work for me. It's pretension cranked up to 11. For some, I suppose, it's "Look how the octopus struggles to survive even as it's being eaten. How rich a metaphor." For me, it's more "Whoa! Never saw that before!" Visually, it's a feast. The cinematography is something that will be pored over by film students for years. Park and his team love putting the camera overhead, like a God's eye view. But even the long pan on the fight scene just seems to scream, "Look how cleverly we are filming this fight scene!" It just takes you out of the movie. Another fight it staged in a room full of glass stuff so that we can see artfully shot smashing glass.
It's a meta-movie. A movie about movies. The vengeance plot, with it's big reveal at the end, seems like a dare it is so preposterous. "We dare you to swallow this." It's absurd in the way many opera plots are and I suppose, in that sense, it's over-the-topness should not matter. But it did to me.
It also cops out at the end. What are we to think will be the future of Dae-su and the girl? What does the ecstatic look on his face mean? What is he anticipating? Park knows full well the audience is too embarrassed to admit it is thinking of one possibility, so it chooses a more noble motive.
A more courageous director would have put a leer on his face.