Got it yesterday, watched it last night, and finished the review this morning. Three Iron hardly needs my introduction but I can't help myself. I love this film so much that it makes me happy just to tell other people about it. Kim Ki-Duk has crafted a cinematic fairytale of raw power out of a few simple characters, virtually no special effects and a story that leads in a different direction for everyone who sees it. Magical, intimate and yet filled with the mundane quality of everyday existance this is a film to treasure.
THREE IRON
Sony Pictures Classics
Easily one of the most haunting films I saw last year Three Iron is a picture I plan to force on almost everyone I know. As a reviewer I don’t get sent everything I ask for and so I scrounge quite a bit- but only for the films I really, really want. Three Iron had I not received it would have been on the absolute top of that list even if, like most of Sony Classics barebones DVD releases, it didn’t have a subtitled director’s commentary.
The film has been reported about endlessly on ScreenAnarchy making a review of the Region One DVD almost token- what’s the point? The point is that whatever small percentage of you out there haven’t experienced this film should go out of your way now. No excuse about not having a functional Region One copy. Three Iron is a symphony of silent grace, inner turmoil and ultimately obsession or love or both, the viewer will have to decide.
Tae-Suk is a young male drifter who breaks into people’s homes while they are away- but not to steal. He does laundry, small home repairs and cleans leaving each home and the lives of those return better for his visit. But his careful planning goes away when he inadvertently enters the home still occupied by Sun-hwa a young wife trapped in a loveless marriage with an abusive husband. Running off together to pursue Tae-Suk’s unorthodox lifestyle until they find themselves unjustly accused of murder. With Tae-Suk boxed in by prison walls their relationship is put to a test that leads in directions not even the keenest filmgoer is liable to guess.
For a filmmaker known for gut wrenchingly violent and sexually graphic images Ki-Duk shows remarkable restraint here. Like his previous Spring Summer Winter Fall, the director offers his strongest narrative grasp through silence. Characters do not speak because they do not have to. They move instead, as if they are inside out, everything about their desires, dreams, hopes and fears is exposed leaving them to clearly react against one another. Three Iron is that rare film that while transcending genre can legitimately touch fans of horror, fantasy, drama, comedy and tragedy. Where you wind up will probably change with each viewing. I can’t wait to experience them all.
Must go, much to review. But by all means please, please, please see this remarkable film.