“Vegetarian”, creatively expelled in 2009, noted a entrance of Korean art residence executive Lim Woo Seong, and like his new “Scars” was blending from a brief story by author Han Gang. The film is a dim psycho play following a immature woman, played by singer Chae Min Seo (“The Loner”), whose remarkable preference not to eat beef signals a start of a skirmish into mental and earthy decline. An during times surreal and unfortunate affair, a film screened to commend during a accumulation of general festivals, including Pusan in 2009 and Sundance in 2010, winning Lim regard as a fascinating new talent in Korean cinema.
Chae Min Seo plays Yeong Hye, an lunatic housewife whose father and family are astounded and perturbed when she one day announces that she is apropos a vegetarian. Her poise fast becomes erratic, ridding a residence wholly of beef and gradually isolating herself, her unsettled nightly dreams invading her days. Things change when Yeong Hye starts spending time her brother-in-law Min Ho (Kim Hyun Sung, “Puzzle”), a tortured artist form who has strike a artistic dry patch and is doubt his life. With her posing for him as a model, a dual embark together on a uncanny tour of find and transformation.
To make things transparent from a start: “Vegetarian” is a intentionally art residence film, an odd, obscure event that is utterly expected to bemuse or perplex anyone looking for an average, easy answers film. Director Lim Woo Seong positively takes what could have been a sincerely candid psychological impression investigate to some unequivocally bizarre places, blending themes of temperament and mysticism with gender struggles and even some Cronenberg-style physique horror. As with “Scars”, Lim keeps things enigmatic, explaining unequivocally small and withdrawal it adult to a spectator to discern reasons behind Yeong He’s metamorphosis, presumably suggesting that it competence have been childhood trauma, yet shying divided from any pithy elaborations. Thankfully, notwithstanding a determined obtuseness, a film is elegant and engaging, with some beautiful visuals, and open disposed viewers used to dauntless cinema should find a lyricism appreciative and stimulating.
The film is unsurprisingly utterly dim and disturbing, with some of Yeong He’s dreams and visions being uncanny and startling, yet is never intolerable in a tributary manner, Lim eschewing anything too exploitative. This carrying been said, it does underline a satisfactory volume of surprisingly pithy sex, with singer Chae Min Seo appearing entirely bare on many occasions and enchanting in some striking couplings. Lim manages to travel a bizarre line between a amorous and a grotesque, joining a exposed tellurian physique with flowers, presumably as a means of symbolically underlining Yeong He’s blossoming divided from a hardship of her father and family life. At a same time yet a film does not provide this as being indispensably a good thing, with her increasingly unhinged actions creation it transparent that a film is doubtful to finish good (or even finish in a coherent, distinct manner).
Chae Min Seo is glorious in a lead role, and a film eventually belongs to her. Having undergone a tough dietary regime in sequence to simulate her character’s weight detriment and flourishing fragility, she turns in a convincing and absolute performance, giving a film adequate of an romantic anchor to forestall it from apropos too abstract. Her ability to beget magnetism for a potentially infinite lady is considerable indeed, and yet it is competence be formidable to describe with what she is going through, it’s tough not to caring about her fate. Kim Hyun Sung is likewise on clever form, and a attribute between their characters in a after stages of a film creates for a constrained dynamic, a shifting, charged bond in that is never transparent who is unequivocally assisting or determining who.
Though “Vegetarian” is not a film for everyone, and to an border is guilty of catchy pretentiousness, it’s a bold, beautifully crafted and rarely strange effort. Lim Woo Seong is as most a producer as a director, and a severe film should be enjoyed by dauntless viewers with a ambience for a artistic and outlandish.
Woo-Seong Lim (director) / Woo-Seong Lim (screenplay)
CAST: Min-seo Chae
Hyun-sung Kim
Ui-jin Kim
Yeo-jin Kim
Yeong-jae Kim
Ji-hye Yun
Article source: http://www.beyondhollywood.com/vegetarian-2009-movie-review/
