A beautiful Korean surprise reviewed for DVDsnapshot.com - and highly recommended.
A prisoner on death row and a woman who's drawn to
his plight go through their own spring, summer, fall and winter of love in
Breath, a typically quirky chamber drama by helmer Kim
Ki-duk.
Nominated for the Golden
Palm at Cannes, this emotional tour-de-force from the world-renowned Korean
auteur will sweep you away with restrained passions painted in seasonal colours.
Asian star Chen Chang (Red Cliff; Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon) leads an excellent cast that includes a Jung-Woo
(The Chaser) and Park Ji-a (The Coast
Guard).
Our
Take:
It's easy to understand why
Breath was nominated for the Palm d'Or at Cannes. Scenes in
films are composed to direct the eye where the filmmaker wishes the viewer to
look. Kim Ki-duk seems to thrive in oblique composition and scenes that almost
engage in misdirection. The subject is frequently happening right outside the
frame, off-center, or even the blurry foreground. With a spareness of both
visuals and dialogue, this plain quiet movie adds up to be surprisingly
rich.
Yeon is a frustrated wife
and sculptor who's just discovered her husband is having an affair, and decides
on a whim to visit Jang-jin. He's a death row inmate who'd tried to kill himself
to avoid his pending execution. Breath is the kind of film that
can make a character's affair perfectly clear from the beginning even if not
actually confirmed until the half-way point (and that is not a spoiler).
