[Film Journal] - Oldboy

Films that I admire - 4

Oldboy’s cult status can be shown by a lot of recommendations that are pointing out it as the finest Korean film ever made. It is indeed such a high-quality art which should not be missed. I am not stating this in terms of the story’s approach to social issues and morals. But its artistic nature especially with its originality in content, structure, theme, tone, style and everything. Oldboy is one of those movies, which has a modern classic grade and which has almost flawless narration (I am talking about the original one, a Korean flick). There are times when I listen to the soundtracks of this film repeatedly at night. I certainly place this film at the top of the list among other Korean films. In fact, I don’t find Mr Park Chan Wook’s other films are that great compared to this one. Though I liked his other two revenge-based movies, I find them very void in quirkiness and less dense compared to this masterpiece.

Oldboy’s style in the screenplay is notable work, especially in how the writer manipulates time and space with its transitions, compositions and its surrealistic frames. For instance look at the brilliant scene where Oh-Dae-Su (protagonist) saw his younger self in school and running behind his teen version to recall the past. There are so much artistic staging and blocking, but my favourite one is, at the end where Yoo-Ji-Tae shoots himself. This scene transcends time so well that it literally brings the past moment. With its beautiful background score and emotions, the scene worked well for me. When talking about style, it is worth mentioning offbeat action sequences in the film. For me, Oldboy’s action sequences are the most innovative at that time. Especially that famous unique corridor fight scene, and the climax action scenes. All of the Soundtrack from the film album is fantastic, you can almost sense the melancholy and atmosphere that it wants to create. As I told above, my favourites are “Cries and whispers”, “Last Waltz”, “Count of Monte Cristo” and “Out of the past”.

I am very much engaged in the social nuances that the film talks about. Of course, the entire plot is built on top of that, but even in the not-so-major scenes, the writer is able to pull off the core themes amazingly. For example, when Oh-Dae-Su reveals the biggest secret like nothing in the lift, you can see that the antagonist notices his bodyguard’s reactions to capture his judgements. And Scenes such as the investigation in the beauty parlour, and the one where the protagonist tells his sad flashback without hearing the opposite ones who is going to jump from the building, all of them are stitched with the chunk of societal ironies and judgement.

Enough of aesthetics, Let’s talk about interesting themes of the film. There is a scene where the antagonist monologues below dialogue to his guard with a bit of sorrow and guilt.

“Mr Han, do you really think Mido has fallen in love with Oh Dae-su?”

I think these crucial lines, summarise the whole tragedy of the movie. In convention, films with tragic characters always have this conflict of ideas within themselves, later writer will reveal them which should leads to completion of the arc in characters journey. In Oldboy, the major conflict or the central question is, whether the love created between Yoo-Ji-Tae and his sister is a natural one or not, or whether is he the only one to face this guilt against nature. Because he wants to put Oh-Dae-Su in the same conflict as himself. Here the opposite of nature is described as the “devil” in the film, you can notice this in later dialogues of the film.

“Even though I’m no more than a monster - don’t I, too, have the right to live?”.

When both characters are facing their tragic end, unlike the antagonist, Oh-Dae-Su wants to become an “angel”, which is symbolised often with the white wings and white colour composition in the climax, so the idea of monster and angel termed with truth seekers and who don’t want to accept that. I love this kind of writing where characters confront each other, where they show their aggressiveness, passion, grief and vulnerability. Because that is how characters should behave at those moments, not just with blind actions and shootouts, especially for emotion-driven stories.

The film is filled with so many symbols and allegories, It’s worth mentioning some of them. For instance just look at the number of organs and body parts involved in the film, Oh-De-su’s tongue, Mido’s angel wings toy, the hotel owner’s chopped and prosthetic hand, teeth, the Antagonist’s heart, the legs of the antagonist’s sister there are so many. Which often tells about themselves or the morals the character believes. (My perspectives here might be correct, or the director just wants to use them as body horror elements :)). Apart from this, the octopus, ants and some other absurd symbols and patterns make the film more surreal, dense and symbolic.

Though the film is dealing with very serious philosophical queries, I liked how the film separated the layers between the plot’s theme and style which eclipses dark humour and beautiful form. The old boy is a great example of how you can take a contemporary theme or classic idea and interestingly weave it with different layers of tone and innovative pictures. Overall the film is perfectly crafted in an almost flawless manner, this statement might be subjective, but I believe that films which are true to themselves will always have zero flaws.