Kim Ki-duk: The man who spoke with his body began to be silent

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Editor's note: As one of South Korea's most famous directors, Kim Ki-duk has always been highly regarded for his bold and out-of-style work, and many of his works have been shortlisted for top film festivals such as Berlin and Venice, and have won many awards. But in recent years, Kim's personal life has also been criticized, involved in many scandals such as sexual assault and beating of actresses. According to South Korea's "Chosun Ilbo" quoted Russian sources on the 11th, Kim Ki-duk died in Latvia due to complications of new crown pneumonia. After his death, the Korean film industry rarely saw public mourning, but fell into an awkward silence. This magazine invites the famous film critic Sai, who has had face-to-face exchanges with Kim Ki-duk, to review Kim Ki-duk's short but rich life. The director's life should not be defined only by those scandals and lawsuits, nor should his understanding be limited to large-scale controversies.

One

When VCD and subsequent DVDs were popular in China, South Korean director Kim Ki-duk was definitely a name not to be missed, and fans' enthusiasm for him came mainly from those beautiful envelopes. When full of different ideas, I found that Kim Ki-duk's films really used enough material, enough stimulation, often inconsolably let your pores and pupils dilate together, never like some discs hanging sheep's heads and selling dog meat. Watching Kim Ki-deok for a long time, some people can see that this Jun's movie is a failure, and there is a hole in the gold and jade.

Kim Ki-duk's fans in China, both in number and proportion, far surpass South Korea. He also has a very good feeling for China for this reason, and several times he has come to China, if he is recognized, the signed photo is not rejected, which is in stark contrast to the coldness in his movie. He even moved the idea of shifting the focus of his work to China, but for various reasons, he did not achieve his wishes. Maybe that's why Kim Ki-duk and I had dinner once, and he gave me the impression that his man was softer, more polite, and a lot more smiling than in his films. During the banquet, Kim Ki-duk also improvised the song "Arirang". He sang the song on many occasions, such as in Cannes and Venice. He sang well, was full of energy and full of emotion. There is also a director here, Feng Xiaogang, and his song xing also followed. He sang "Long Time No See" and he sang very well.

That was the first time I saw Kim Ki-duk, and the last time. I had been hoping that Kim Ki-duk would return to his best working condition, and it seems that this hope has been completely disappointed. Kim Ki-duk once decided to make a film in China called "Godless", which is a high-concept fantasy masterpiece. This was supposed to be a full seat in the standard sense of this big director who was good at private sketches. But now, people have gone to the empty building.

In recent years, Korean films have repeatedly won the highest awards in the world film industry, and the filmmaker who first brought a worldwide reputation to Korean films seems to have faded from people's vision. People say that he has exhausted his talents, and all his talents have long been cleared by him. Some people say that he suffers from severe depression and social phobia, and the film industry, which needs to work together, has this lesion, and everything is empty as everything is difficult. On the other hand, his reputation in South Korea is also worrying, mainly in several sexual assault cases. Although Kim Ki-duk eventually won the case, the Korean film industry was completely unbearably eager to see this filmmaker who was completely self-taught to be unique in the film industry.

My earliest contact with Kim Ki-duk's film is "The Recipient Is Unknown", this film and three other important Korean directors, Lee Cang-dong, Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho, as well as their respective famous works "Mint Candy", "Common Security Zone" and "Memories of Killing", all have an extremely heavy sense of home and country, each has its own intention to kill thieves, unable to return to heaven. They all realize with great consciousness that the essence of retelling history lies not in the revelation of history to the present, but in the continuation of history, because the most important essence of history is repetition. You can't change history, and you can't shake the present. Kim Ki-duk differs from the other three top-notch figures in two ways: they all talk about confrontation, while Kim Ki-duk talks about more instinct, that is, physical confrontation; the torture of the mind is not so impressive, and the damage of the body or even the inability to repair it will hover more permanently over the human mind, and the human psychology is controlled by human physiology. Some people also say that Kim Ki-duk uses the incompleteness of his body to illustrate the division of the Korean Dynasty, which is not unreasonable. And the title of "Unknown Recipient", which is itself a very interesting title, already implies that there is nowhere to place desire. What Kim Ki-duk further wants to express is that your compassion is also nowhere to be placed, and those bizarre scenes in the film are not begging for pity, nor selling misery, not getting the echo of the world, but just self-identification. You identify with history, with the collective that represents history, and your ego ceases to exist, and only self-destruction can have shining moments, and moments are eternal. This is even more evident in "Drifting Room", once you and I fall in love, it is the beginning of my road to destruction. This is the greatest thing about Kim Ki-duk, and it also makes Kim Ki-duk's film break through the national reference very early on, as if wandering in a more empty world. As for the concept of the state, it sometimes becomes a pseudo-proposition, which is no longer detailed here.

Personally, I prefer another masterpiece of Kim Ki-duk's period, Bad Boys. It looks like a love movie. The story is Kim Ki-duk's most often told strange story about prostitution, a man fell in love with a woman, in order to make this woman fall in love with himself, he designed to let this seemingly dignified female student have a thrilling career. This is a bit like the forbidden room peining bridge section that Japanese heterochromatic movies talk about. But the magic of this story is that this little girl doesn't know that her betrayal is nothing when everyone is selling. It can also be said that this woman is completely suitable for this profession, but she herself does not know it. So, it's up to a man to tell her what she's thinking. What exactly is needed? It's a story of self-searching, so this woman discovers her physical and mental characteristics and is somewhat grateful to this man. At the end of the film, this man and woman drive a truck, selling and selling as they go. Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are also happy to express sex and violence, but compared to Kim Ki-duk, their sex and violence is a rebellion against the system and history. And the first thing Kim Ki-duk had to oppose was himself. Too many Korean directors who do not spare blood and senses hope that through abnormal actions, they can transcend sex and violence in order to obtain more morphological extensions. Kim Ki-duk is different from them, and the heretical acts in his films pursue an internalization, a dialogue between himself and himself. In the whole of South Korea, including the entire world film industry, it is absolutely rare for a director like Kim Ki-duk to combine pain and happiness, hope and despair in the same room.

Two

Regarding the fascination with this part of the body, I do not want to repeat Kim Ki-duk's suffering career and the more miserable career of the military. I would like to say that Kim Ki-duk, who did not have a high education and had not yet graduated from secondary school, went to Paris for further study because of his obsession with painting and in order to improve his own situation. There, he saw paintings by the Austrian expressionist master Egon Schiller, who was deeply moved by the genius who died at the age of 28. Schiller loved to paint the human body, and even more loved to paint his own body. These bodies are not healthy enough and ugly, but there is a kind of nudity of the soul caused by the honesty of the body. More importantly, Kim Ki-duk sees in these paintings a contempt for the whole world, and only by not believing in the world can it be possible to show vitality.

Also in Paris, Kim ki-duk saw two films, "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Lovers of the New Bridge" respectively. According to his own account, he had never seen a movie before, and these two movies made him decide to join the world of light and shadow.

"The Silence of the Lambs" is about dealing with other people's bodies, and "Lovers of New Bridges" is about dealing with one's own body. In those two films, the body is the only language, and possibly the only faith. All of this is highly consistent with a series of complex and contradictory complexes in the later series of later films of this relatively late film youth who worship the body as a god and regard the body as nothing. This is the root of his respect, and the source of his protests by others. But anyway, Kim Ki-duk started with a script, and his first screenplay was called The Painter and the Prisoner. Listening to this name, you know that it has something to do with himself, and he also has a certain connection with Egon Schiller.

In 2004, I worked for a magazine that was going to do a major feature on Korean cinema, and I was actively involved in it. At the planning meeting, I proposed that Kim Ki-duk is the best director in Korea. Only in his films do we see men and women; we see the nation and the world; we see the past and we see the future. I saw the sudden but definitely unprovoked suffering, and I saw the light of hope that came but suddenly passed. If every few years, I would continue to say: I see the body, the five senses that have nothing to do with ideas, the trunk that has nothing to do with morality, and it is a living body that can really carry the mind and the mind.

This year is the highlight of Korean cinema, and if it is really about national honor, it is all because of Kim Ki-duk. His "Samaritan Girl" won the Silver Bear award for best director at the Berlin Film Festival, while his "Empty Room" won the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival. It's what happened the same year, as if the whole world were watching this ill-defined filmmaker. Since then, Kim Ki-duk has been making films, but it should be said that he has never made a good work that shocks the world and continues to mourn. Even though his "Holy Death" won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, achieving a breakthrough in Korean cinema at the three major European film festivals, the film that was left with strange feelings and built up by concepts was far from the highest level of Kim Ki-duk's films.

Even without the blessing of those dazzling awards, I still think it was the most moving film time for Kim Ki-duk. He was no longer as blind as before and after, but more kind-eyed. Don't be so thorough, but let the truth belong only to the truth. Restlessness and Enron became synonymous, and silence became the only way to communicate. He was about to complete his respect for people and the world in the light and shadow. In particular, "The Empty Room", in the space where the spoken language only bears the illusion, there is a language that fills the air, leading those who are good at fantasy, from one miracle to another. Few films treat everyday life like "Empty Room" like a dream. If we think of it as a love movie, it is a very pure love movie, I only appear in front of you, no one can see me, I only exist for you. But "Empty Room", although it represents the current South Korea, it is detached from the time and space dimension that the country has, and you can think of it as a glittering fairy tale. So what this fairy tale is about is that you can be yourself, you have to disappear from people's sight, you can freely flow like air. I thought Kim Ki-duk would make a big difference, and in time, maybe he would present something new for world cinema. But he still lost the expectations of the people, and he also lost himself, and suddenly stopped. Although Kim Ki-duk's films are no longer glamorous, he often works with some of Asia's most beautiful young actors, such as Zhang Zhen in "Breathing" and Oda Chejang in "Sad Dream". Interestingly, South Korea's currently popular Ha Jeong-woo and Kim Ki-duk did not have much fame when they collaborated on "Time". The films he directed later were only vicious repetitions at the beginning of his film career, and his golden obsession with the unknowable gave way to the simple chain of cause and effect, and was tied up and dragged into a dead end by the most permissible human evil.

I have never forgotten the flowers that Kim Ki-duk once gave me, the wind blowing willows, the people who were afraid to live as a legend, but after all, they were bizarre enough. Kim Ki-duk enriched my understanding, if there is any purpose in watching movies, this is it. Not only movies, but whatever it is, as long as it can tell me that it is not enough to see the world with my eyes, there are images outside the image, and there is also the subconscious under the consciousness. Our cognition can never keep up with the secrets spread by the world, big or small, deep or shallow, and I will be sincerely grateful.