March 25, 2005
Old Boy
Salon’s review of Old Boy this week is dead on, and it’s a good counterbalance to this annoying take on it.
Both critics highlighted the hallway fight scene - Anthony Lane compared it to an animated Gericault, Salon saw it as an epic Greek vase. I figured it was based on Xiao Xiao’s stick figure of death side scrollers.
I usually dislike directors who specialize in cruelty. I hated Dancer in the Dark, and I can't stand Todd Solondz hipster nihilism. Park's movies are different. In Old Boy and Sympathy you identify with the person being tortured, no matter where they rank in the morality of the narrative -- nothing justifies the cruelty. Park's great trick is setting the movie up so that there’s no escape from that sympathy. (There's a much more lucid conversation about the movie, and its critics, here. If you hate the film and the morally bankrupt fan-boys who like it, you'll enjoy this review of it.)
