Jamie passion and passionfruit!

This Korean film comes highly recommended although I have just got to it now.  A horror movie, which are not really my scene, it is more than that however and a most satisfying experience it proves to be.  The basic story is that a strange monster that has obviously mutated from the local river (as a result of the dumping of chemicals by order of the US military) and this half amphibian creature emerges from the water and starts to wreak havoc killing locals and kidnapping a young girl who ends up hiding in a sewer the beast uses as its deposit for corpses.  This is the horror part.  Meanwhile, the girl’s family who are fairly simple folk, start to look for her encouraged by a cellphone message she gets out to them.  To do this, they have to defy the local authorities who have decided to isolate that part of the city on the grounds that the monster has brought a virus and those who had contact with it may be infected.  The role of the state in the story is heavily criticised as one of fear and overkill and the illusions to the US post 9/11 are clear.  It wants to bring in its own mutating gas to ‘innoculate’ the people or to justify lobotomies all the time ignoring the voices of its own citizens.  The fact that it seems to be being advised by the US itself is referred to more than once.  This mixture of political comment and traditional horror make for a unique film and director Bong Joon Ho gives us some very moving scenes with genuine emotion that leave most of the American War of the Worlds like efforts awash in patriotic drivel and overly stated family values.  Here the values are super present but treated in a way that complements the story rather than overwhelming it.  Apart from that, there are subtleties in the camera work and the choice of what we see that are intelligent and help the story to move on.  Bong can produce both fast moving scenes and tightly filmed slow ones with equal aplomb.

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