| “Empty House” by Kim Ki-Duk on Moscow screens The leaflet is attached to the door, just above the handle, with a piece of transparent tape. Noodles, seafood, seasonings and other invariable attributes of national Korean cuisine are laid out on the leaflet from the most advantageous angle. Nearby is a telephone. But it’s unlikely that anyone will call it: as soon as an ordinary Korean arrives home, he immediately tears off the unnecessary piece of paper and throws it at his feet. If the leaflet is intact, it means the owner is not at home. Then Tae-Sook takes out the master keys and enters the house and first checks the answering machine. If it says something like “We're out to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we'll be back in a week, call us on our cell phone,” then that house becomes Tae-Sook's house. He doesn't steal, doesn't litter, fixes broken things and washes dirty laundry - the old fashioned way, by hand. Moreover, he takes photographs of himself in the apartment, so as not to forget the room, which for some time became his abode. But one day, arriving at another house, rich and spacious, Tae-Sook does not even immediately realize that it is not empty. There, like a ghost, silent and almost incorporeal, Sun-Hwa remains. She has been watching him for a long time - either from the closet, or in the reflection in the mirror, but does not make her presence known.
When Tae-Sook finally found out that he was not alone in the house, he realized that his life had to change. Together with the woman who continues to remain silent, he runs away from home, having first taught Sun-Hwa’s cruel and rude husband a good lesson with a golf club. Now Tae-Sook and Sun-Hwa live in other people's houses together. They never said a word to each other, but everything they needed to know about each other became clear. Their odyssey continued until they found a dead body in one of the next houses.
What happens to the heroes of “The Empty House” later does not need to be described. In essence, this will not work. In essence, the potential viewer does not need to know everything that was told earlier. It's easy to sit back and watch as the director, who was once a sergeant in the Korean Navy, makes it possible for the fourth time this year to feel that real cinema still exists. From the moment “House” begins to the moment when you realize that you are dealing with a rare, unique work of art, less than half an hour passes - and this feeling does not leave until the very end.
Tae-Sook and Sun-Hwa bury the old man found in the house, but... being taken by surprise, they end up with the police. Tae-Sook is accused of murder and sent to prison, Sun-Hwa returns to her husband. But they know that they will definitely meet again - even if they will not be the same as before. In order to always be with his beloved, Tae-Sook learns in prison the most important thing - to be invisible, to be a living ghost, for whom it no longer matters whether the house in which he lives is empty or not.
It's impossible to explain. Just as the human eye is unable to cover more than 180 degrees, words cannot fully convey what is happening on the screen. About methodical hits of a golf club No. 3 (iron category) on the ball, about a spotted cat making its way around the periphery of the picture about its business, about photographs cut and glued back together in an arbitrary but only correct order on the walls, about tears and bruises, there’s no telling about the inky eye winking from Tae-Sook’s palm. You can remove it. Kim Ki-Duk did it.
There is almost no violence in the film, which short-sighted analysts have made the director's calling card, unable to see anything other than hooks cutting into the body, brutal beatings and entrails being turned out. However, it will not be possible without something like this, but woe to those who again do not see the picture as a whole. Such a viewer will not even suspect that in fact, even after leaving the hall, he will not be alone. An invisible hero will move behind him like a persistent shadow. And the viewer's house will never be empty again. Stanislav F. ROSTOTSKY |
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