The Plot is about a lonely man who breaks into other's apartments when they are away, to live a night or two after which he silently leaves, but only after fixing some broken articles as a thanks giving gesture for their unintended hospitality.His strange ways, life and his passion for golf, taking a serious turn when he meets a rich man's tormented wife,who elopes with him when he decides to punish the man to save the woman from abuse. The movie talks about, their relationship, the secret life they share,which only they can understand, and the consequences which they get to face.They don't speak to each other, but they don't need to, as they talk in silence in most of the time and its this silence that rules their romance and the movie.
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| (Kim Ki-duk) |
'3-iron' is definitely a modern masterpiece and I honestly regret for wasting eight long years before I finally watched it.
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It was last night that I saw the movie and blogged about it. Today, I woke up, dropped my child to her school and came back, still thinking about the movie. I feel this is what makes a cinema great. You don't just watch it, say 'clap--clap thank ma'am' and go to sleep and forget about it. A good cinema is that haunts you at least for few days or even for ever. You would see some frames coming into your mind when ever you close your eyes. On my bike, all my way back to home, I was thinking about 'Golf'. The game of Golf was used as one of the recurring imageries in the movie, You also see, a Motor bike, screw driver,weighing machine; But, 'Golf 'scenes dominates. For example he uses golf to take revenge on some one. I was wondering, why 'golf'?. I think, golf represents plan, speed, power, and above all a 'ruthless execution' to hit the target. But its not only these features of golf that makes it being used here. I think, golf also stands for expanding the boundaries and the conquering of far away lands. In the movie, you see, Tae Suk practices Golf with a ball tied to a hard wire attached to a pole.Sun Hwa often accompanies him in those exercises. I guess, this practice shows his attitude to be with in himself and his secret way of life. He can't just stretch it and set free one day to lead a normal life. How ever he hits hard, the ball never flies away, It stays right under the tree after each such executuion. There is one instance, where the ball actually flies out of the pole after a blow, and it badly hurts woman who passed by, in her car. This incident seriously hurts Tae and he weeps in extreme agony. May be, this explains why an extremely skilled,(the movie shows this, when he fixes electronic or mechanical gadgets at other people's homes, in a quick and precise fashion) college graduate to lead such a reckless life. He simply cannot do anything else. Its the territory he is with in, he just cannot expand beyond that. Movie is all about this 'territory' and 'territorial marking' , trespassing other's, and being punished for it. Like a predator scratching on a tree to mark it's presence in an unknown territory, he carries a camera with him to take photos of himself before a certain object in other people's homes. He invades into their privacy, and leaves a deliberate note to show that he was there and leaves silently back to his world.Reading a good cinema is a tough task. you often end up reaching your own erratic conclusions missing your way through such imageries. You end up assuming things. For example, movie never shows, Tse being killed at the Police station, but it certainly suggests it, with sound effects after a scene were he is being dragged out of his cell by three men. Director confuses you by giving clues about his being free. Tse is shown practicing the art of shadow walking(Sinanju?) inside the Jail and testing his skills against a rough police man, so that he could escape from anywhere and enter any body's house without being noticed. Also, Sun Hwa's husband receives a phone call about his freedom at night and he eagerly waits for his arrival. only Sun Hwa feels him where all others get to feel is his ghostly presence.Movie shows people from different houses feeling somebody's presence at their home. There is only one word sun hwa utters in the whole movie which is 'I love you' to this ghostly presence which only she could see. Movie ends with a note, 'It is hard to tell the world we live in is either a reality or a dream' and that pretty much summarizes it. I should add that Jae Hee(Tse) and Lee Seung (Sun)had that beautiful on- screen chemistry and it really worked.If you haven't seen this, you definitely have missed something.
