This magnificent piece made me write a blog, just to
say what I gotta say, in bad english, of course. This is what you wait for
years to come – a good film. Not some idiotic movie that you try your best to
show it’s goood, to overread it, cause it doesn’t stand on its own. You like
it, but something is missing, you want it to be better than it really is, but
“your” movie is never there. The Wailing, with a very simple meaning, is a
completely natural force, a contemporary greek tragedy, with a powerful impact.
And of course, that’s what people always say, then it was Old Boy or
Snowpiercer, why would this… if you thought Old Boy wasn’t really it, that it
lacked something, then you’re my man. Cause The Wailing is as close it gets to
fullblooded masterpiece.
Yeah, it’s confusing, hell, I don’t think what I’ll
write will solve this confusion. It’s just that I have to write it. Deep down,
it’s actually a very simple film with the right questions: Why we don’t trust
ourselves? Or, why are we doing the wrong things? Not in some evil mastermind
way, but why are we, the “ordinary people”, living like this? Even God (if that
in the film was even God) can’t help us if we don’t want to help ourselves.
This little fat guy shows everything that’s wrong with contemporary world, and
obesity is probably the least of the problems. This guy, we should call him The
Untrue Detective, lives the way people live, without questions or answers,
without any purpose. Until something changes. Here come the best SPOILERS ever.
At first, you even expect a pure horror comedy, just
entertainment, and than you get a mindblowing thriller with minimum
compromises. As a white guy, maybe I’m oversimplifying without enough knowledge of korean society, but this really is a
story with a Devil, an Angel or God, and The Priest or Shaman. The problem is
not on this narrative level, but really our perception of this, of our
understanding of good and evil, how much we corrupted ourselves in this God
forsaken world, that we don’t even see what is in front of us. So, this is how
I understand this film, a very simple cast of Japanese Devil, the Angel Girl
(or good village spirit), and the Shaman. As you could see for yourself, the
first scene shows a Japanese Guy fishing, putting a worm on a hook and
whispering something. It doesn’t really mean anything at this point, but
eventually, he’s fishing again when the policeman sits by a river with his
daughter, after she caught him having sex. He is definitely
fishing for souls.
The policeman is a man who likes to drink, sleep with his wife, goofing on his very serious job, pretty much a likeable fellow, who’s
even funny at times. You wouldn’t say this guy deserves a hursh punishment, but
that’s not the point. He is just a man who took the bait, and everything
followed. The disease that’s spreading through the village remains a mystery,
even though there are remarks about Japanese guy who’s doing all the work, but
every normal person would react against that kind of thinking, not just because
of some political correctnes, but cause it doesn't even sound logical at first. What I’m trying
to say is that Japanese actor was cast to confuse the viewer into thinking that
The Devil really is someone else. This is what happens to everybody in our daily
lives, we think in black and white categories, and the black is very often the
new white. It doesn't mean that in a hypotethical remake the American would be the Satan and Jihadist falsely accused, but that it wouldn't be vice versa either. This postmodern condition destroyed the simple perspective of good and
evil, and that brings us deeper in this mystery.
The Japanese actor is a great way to confuse an audience. There are completely obvious clues throughout this
film that Japanese guy is a culprit, but we are still not sure if that’s it,
or, at least, maybe he has a helping hand. First, a guy from the murder scene
says Japanese did something, and his eyes were red and so on… than even the
Angel girl shows, throws rock on the policemen, explains to him everything,
and he goes to check it out. His colegue sees the pictures of various victims,
even heads of certain lucifer friendly animal. After policeman’s daughter's illnes progressed, he even demolishes the house of the Japanese, and kills his
dog. The audience even sees that shaman’s ritual is destroying the Japanese's black magic, but the shaman himself becomes more suspicious. He litterally looks like a
fraud, but it doesn’t change his position, maybe even authority. They, for some
reason, trust him. Even more than that, the audience sees the Japanese guy
using the Dead Man’s picture and ressurecting him, but in the chase scene we’re
still not sure if he really formed a zombie, and not someone else, that is, Angel that is following the Japanese guy. Hell, it’s even funny that this guy is cold
after an occult session, has to take a blanket, but it’s his pure Karate Kid’s teacher face, that
Hollywood trope, that’s still has power over us.
Everything is shown to us, yet, we don’t believe. It’
s the girl, or the Shaman, who’s vomiting blood, they're evil. The Shaman may be a corrupt priest bussinesman,
living of the misfortunes of the people who actually trusted him, even though
he brought them only misery. In a crazy way, the shaman helped mostly the
Devil, that brings me to question if that’s what priests mostly do? Maybe the
dogmatic ignorance of world’s religions, their silence and inactivity in the
face of planetary injustice, really is personified in this oportunist
quasipriest that dances around fire for money. And even him had more authority
than Angel (God?) Herself. Whatever she said to the policeman was true, he probably showed the whole seven sins package to us, with a pinch of murder, he has an excuse. He's doing it for his daughter. He's killing other people for his daughter, that is. Who knows who are we killing with our little insignificant acts all around the world, and how many people are starving while we jerk our android app.
It’s not like we couldn’t see who the Devil was, it’s
that we didn’t want to see. Policeman, his anger and panic and fear, made him
completely clueless to what is going on. Maybe Angel's dress was too white, her face
too pretty, his mind too cynical and chaotic, but in the end the priest said: Jap
is not the Devil. Exactly. You shouldn’t trust your own eyes, trust the priest.
Or television. I read once a very smart thing, written by a smart man, it goes
something like this: “in this brave new world of ours, friends and enemies are
the same”. Not because it is the truth, but cause we want to believe in it.
That’s why The Wailing is OUR story. It doesn’t really matter if you religious
or not, this is how everybody sees the world. We are the policeman. The
daughter is our most precious thing. We are screwing it up. Not, shamans,
politicians, Devils… Angels can’t help us. In this world, they even deserve to
die.
