Pieta

Kim Ki-duking Me Softly

As messy as they come. Part anti-capitalism rant, part Oedipal bonding tale, "Pieta" is both twisted and tender, alternately too opaque and too moralistic and, ultimately, for me, more satisfying than not. I was bored, I was shaken, I was skeptical, but, in the end, I definitely came to admire Kim's idiosyncratic ambition.

Simplistic ideas abound in this pointlessly dour and horribly executed Korean drama.

I don't know nearly enough about films or Kim Ki-duk to make this statement but I'm making it anyway: this is the most Kim Ki-duk film there will ever be.

Reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, where everything plays out just how fate & cosmic justice demand it must. While the story arc has a certain classic profundity to it, I don't think there's much depth beyond that -- everything is too neat and tidy with zero surprises and not much room for interpretation or ambiguity. Why are the characters in all these Korean revenge stories always so confident that their Rube Goldberg-like schemes will produce the intended psychological effects in their targets?

It starts out as a self-parody of Kim's ID-driven style (we get suicide and masturbation within the first two minutes) but it weirdly switches gears towards the 40 minute mark and becomes an almost gentle and touching drama about a mother and a son. Then again, this isn't really a movie about characters, though, perhaps a cinematic representation of Kim's insane head. It's a personal movie from a really earnest artist and it might seem sloppy to most, but Kim has never been more confident.

This downer has an obvious reference to money as a destructive force, in which christianity and family sorrow are mixed to depict a society built on torture, humiliation, violence against women and gratuitous cruelty. But Ki-duk's crude, zoom-in-zoom-out and hand-held shots only seem to work in the unpleaseant first 40 minutes. Somehow, the director prefers a schematic climax -- the idea of making the old woman torture her son with fake threats looks too naive. The leads are great, though.

Perfect Ki Duk movie.

filmekimi 2012 & Venedik'te 'Altin Aslan' alan Pieta, fallik objelerle bezeli, ucuz-provokatif bir kor goze parmak kapitalizm taslamasi.

Kim Ki-duk was such a twisted, depraved little deviant. Gross and extremely uncomfortable while still being thought-provoking and nuanced

A story of everyone regretting their actions, especially the viewer.

A very good movie, but very difficult to watch. I had to pause it multiple times to go through some particularly gruesome sequences.

Not really a story about redemption so much as one about pain and loss.

I ended this feeling this story could been told and the themes about motherhood and sacrifice could have conveyed without the extremeness and violence in this. At best it's unnecessary, at worst it's only there for shock value.

Jesus, somebody take that guy's zoom lens away already! Didn't get this - one scene is utterly perfect, and the next one completely botched. Why would you do that?

This is just bad. Everything is so very bad. Funny how I loved everything else I've seen by Ki-duk so far, now I'm scared to rewatch these movies

I switched off before it got to the end of the first act at the point where he was threatening to rape his own mother. I can take gritty and depressing and dark but this is just stupid

Star Rating: ★★★1/2

Last straw. Officially done with all things Ki-duk Kim.

The moral of the story: there is nothing more tortuous than learning to love someone and then losing them.

It lacks subtlety and depth of character, but Pieta gets by with committed performances and a darkly ambitious, deceptively simple message.

predictable but remarkable.

Powerful at times and the atmosphere is admirable, but its flaws stop it from reaching greatness.

It feels to me that Kim Ki Duk has already done this film many times in the past. This is not the best or the worst version of the story that usually contains unsympathetic characters searching for redemption or paying for the sins. I just wish he would come up with something truly new which would match his earlier "Five Seasons" or "The Isle".

Never have I seen so many people leave the movie theater, most in the first 20 minutes.

Interesting ideas but horrible execution turn this into one of the lesser Korean films I've seen

Faturanin sisteme ve onun sanayi carklarina kesildigi film. Sasirtmacasi ve duygu sicramalari boldur. Kore milletinin gunluk yasamda tepkisiz ve sonuk bakisli volkanlardan mutesekkil oldugunu dusunmekteyim.

yillar sonra annesi oldugunu soyleyen kadinla karsilasan kahramanimizin kariyerinin tersyuz olmasi. intikam hikayesi. ama bayik cunku kim ki duk'un ahlakciligi bende ibretlik hikaye tadi birakiyor ve yavan kaliyor. tema para kotu, sanayi bolgesinde hayat zor.

There are some genuinely great scenes and good ideas, but the overall execution is so poor that it unfortunately ends up being quite a bad film. The script, particularly the exposition, is incredibly shoddy (though I suppose it might be the fault of the particular subtitles I was dealing with). Surprisingly decent acting amid the otherwise bad-at-best production.