20 Amazing South Korean Movies You Must See Before You Die
13. Pietà
While, with Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring, Kim Ki-duk made a film full of Buddhist symbolism which was tranquil and contemplative, with this movie rife with Catholic imagery he turned in something far more visceral, disturbing and divisive.
The Pietà is a classic scene in Catholic art which depicts the virgin Mary cradling the body of Christ after it has been brought down from the cross. The central relationship in Kim's Pietà, though, is somewhat more Oedipal than Christ-like.
The movie tells the story of a sadistically brutal enforcer for a loan shark whose life is changed by the arrival of a woman claiming to be his long-lost mother. She prompts a change in his outlook, but not before he has sexually molested her and fed her flesh gouged from this thigh.
Unremitting, bleak and occasionally depraved, the provocative Pietà is very much not a film for everyone, but for those willing to go with it the movie offers a fascinating developing central relationship with two utterly committed performances.
It was the first Korean film to win the Venice Film Festival's prestigious Golden Lion (most recently picked up by Joker), so somebody out there must be able to stomach it!