Kim Ki-Duk: MoMA and Sad Dreams

With the first complete retrospective of Kim Ki-Duk’s oeuvre at the MoMa, from April 23 until May 8, the controversial Korean director has been museified alive, officially consecrated/sanctioned (sanctified?) by the prestigious New York institution – they did Artaud, so why not Kim Ki-Duk? This is quite the honor for the maverick filmmaker – for whom I have always had the greatest admiration, I must say – especially considering his persistent problems with the Korean press in the past. Then again, he has a consistent record of getting recognition from foreign critics and audiences: he received the Best Director awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, for Samaria (2004) and at the Venice Film Festival 3-Iron (2004). So honors are nothing new for him, but a major retrospective at such an established museum is something else entirely, in terms of status.

Fourteen films are screened at this showcase organized by MoMa’s Department of Film Senior Curator Laurence Kardish, and Hahn Dong-sin of Open Work, New York. Director Kim appeared at the screening of Breath for its U.S. premiere.

MoMa describes Kim’s body of work as “sensuous, sensational imagery and wild and haunting narratives” and praises his “sweeping camera movements and long, richly composed shots” (how original, zzz… well, I’ve probably done worse.)

Among Kim’s best known films in the U.S. are “the libidinous The Isle (2000), the Buddhist-inflected Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003), and an elliptical treatise on invisibility, 3-Iron (2004).”

Kim Ki-Duk’s new film is coming out this spring in Seoul. As is usually the case for his work, it has a pretty strong premise, Sad Dream (?? – ?? – it reads and tranliterates as: “Bimong) produced by Kim Ki-duk Film and Sponge Ent, is about two people who are connected by their dreams. Jin (played by Japanese superstar Odagiri Joe) is a guy who dreams obsessively about his missing ex-girlfriend. Ran (Lee Na-young) seems to sleepwalk in accordance with Jin’s dream scenario. Dream and reality literally crash into each other, and so do the dreamer and the sleepwalker…

The film was shot in an incredibly narrow time window, between January 4 and 23 – a typical Kim Ki-Duk film wrap though (Breath was shot in a week).

Ki-duk Kim stated that he was interested in Odagiri Joe since watching his performance in Nishikawa Miwa’s brilliant Sway – I saw it last year at Japan Society, and found it an incredibly well-written and well-performed drama.

taken from : http://www.koreasociety.org