Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week or at least expanding to more theaters (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you. Enjoy…



THIRST
There's no getting around the fact that Chan-wook Park is not only South Korea's finest filmmaker, but one of the most thoughtful and crushingly honest writer-directors working anywhere in the world. There is nothing more sacred to him than getting to the truth of the characters in his often-horrific plots. Yes, I believe he engages in a bit of button pushing, but he's earned the right to do so because he handles every subject he rips into with a maturity that is matched only by the giddy sense he seems to enjoy at getting away with exposing formerly taboo topic with a certain level of dignity and grace. His JSA: JOINT SECURITY AREA is the first film I ever saw that addressed the status of the relationship between North and South Korea; his vengeance trilogy (SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, OLD BOY, and LADY VENGEANCE) cover so much fertile ground in dealing with revenge killing, incest and all sorts of juicy stuff. I recently caught up with his take on mental illness, I'M A CYBORG, AND THAT'S OK, and absolutely loved it, even as I felt pity for the lead characters. And now we have what might be Park's masterpiece, THIRST.

I never in my wildest dreams would have believed that after LET THE RIGHT ONE IN In so skillfully rewrote the book on vampire movies that another director would go ahead and not only do the same, but also rip apart the rule book and scatter the pages to the wind. Park has stripped away nearly all of the mysticism, gloss and ego associated with so many vampire stories of late and replaced them with animal sexuality; raw, often ugly, emotion; gruesome, messy violence; and layer upon layer of guilt, thanks to the lead vampire character also happening to be a priest. In this film, the priest (played by THE HOST's Song Kang-ho) volunteers for medical experiments as a way of hopefully giving back life to unfortunates. Instead, the experimental drug he is given nearly kills him, and he is given a blood transfusion that is infected... by a vampire, eventually turning the priest into a creature that craves blood. Since the priest has no desire to kill other human for blood, he visits the hospital where he sometimes works and sets up what are essentially feeding stations next to coma patients. The priest siphons off small amounts of blood from these patients in the middle of the night--no harm, no foul.

Except things do turn foul, when the priest falls for Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin), the wife of a childhood friend. She tells the priest stories about being beaten by her lout of a husband and has the bruises to prove it, and soon the two are engaged in some acrobatic sex, following shortly by gentle begging by Tae-ju to help her get rid of her husband one way or another. One of the great joys of THIRST is watching the slow, sad deterioration of the priest's morality and vows during the course of the film. At his core, he's a good man, but his lust for blood, carnal knowledge, and to be seen as something of a miracle man contributes to his decay as a human.

Soon the priest and Tae-ju embrace both their insane sexual urges and their blood lust. Maybe more than any other recent vampire film, Thirst shows us just how truly messy ripping open a person's throat can really be. This film skimps on nothing as a bloody exercise and an emotional typhoon that builds upon the priest's guilty feelings for becoming murderer and turning someone else into one (unlike the priest, Tae-ju can't wait to start killing once her transformation is complete). It's rare to see a horror film of any kind with this kind of character development and depth, and Thirst has both to spare. The movie is also visually rich, thanks to Park's regular cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, who adds a cold, raw feeling to every seen, but also knows when to allow color (usually red) to enter this world with striking results.

Aside from one or two short dead spots in the middle of the film, making it feel a touch overlong, THIRST is damn near perfect at every turn. There's a sequence in which some visitors come visit the new couple, where Tae-ju's infirm mother-in-law is attempting to communicate that the two vampires have killed her son. It's unreal how much tension is built up in this sequence, which is punctuated with an eruption of unprecedented gore. It's pretty tasty, and the film is magnificent.



LORNA'S SILENCE
And the winner of the Film with Perhaps the Ickiest Storyline of the Year might just have to go to LORNA'S SILENCE, a co-production from Belgium, France, Italy and Germany about Lorna, a beautiful Albanian woman (Arta Dobroshi), who concocts a plan to open up a snack food store with her boyfriend in Belgium. She's not a citizen, so they come up with a scam whereby she seduces and eventually marries a drug-addicted Belgian man (Jeremie Renier) who loves her so much that he kicks drugs to better himself for her. But the plans calls for Renier to die from a drug overdose, leaving Lorna a citizen and free to marry a Russian mobster, who is willing to exchange citizenship for lots of cash for her snack bar. Get it? I know it sounds confusing, but the truth is Lorna's Silence is really powerful stuff as it examines the lives of people with few or no social qualms about screwing over (or killing) anyone they have to to get what they need.

Lorna is not without heart, and eventually the weight of all of her decisions begins to wear her down, especially after she finds out she's pregnant with the drug addict's child and her husband-to-be wants her to get rid of the pregnancy before they get married. LORNA'S SILENCE is loaded with a dozen or so really heart-dropping moments that just sit in the pit of your stomach and fester. The film's final act gets a bit strange, but it becomes clear that Lorna is looking for some kind of atonement for what has happened to her husband and the willing part she played in his demise. The film is full of complicated emotional issues, dashed dreams, and new ones born. Dobroshi is remarkable, not just for her natural beauty, but for displaying such naked despair alongside an ice-cold exterior when such a persona is called upon or more appropriate. Lorna is one of the complex characters you're likely to see in a film this year, and while I was grateful to watch her operate from a distance, I would never want to meet someone like her. This is a great work of devastating substance.



THROW DOWN YOUR HEART
It's really tough for a music documentary to let me down. In fact, the less I know about a musician or musical trend or event, the more likely I am to be curious and fascinated by a film on that subject. I know virtually nothing about the banjo-playing Bela Fleck. I don't know how popular the guy really is, whether he sells out venues that seat 50,000 or whether he struggles to fill a 500-seat house. I just knew that the idea of a banjo-playing white man going on a journey to several cities in Africa to investigate the history of banjo in that continent (where an early version of the banjo was first invented) sounded mildly intriguing. I liked the idea that a possibility for culture clash would make way for the blending of two very different sounds as Fleck visits some of Africa's greatest singers and players and attempts to insert his instrument into traditional African music.

The resulting music is actually quite lovely and perhaps even the stuff of legend. The problem I had with THROW DOWN YOUR HEART is that Bela Fleck might be the dullest man to ever play any musical instrument. Most of the film, Fleck is agreeable, smiling, saying very little of substance to any of the musicians with whom he is interacting. He just grins at his hosts, nods his head, and plays a little banjo here and there, and that's it. Not that I had expected building tension on inherent drama in any of these situations--musicians tend to be a pretty friendly bunch--but give me something that shows the man has some curiosity about who he is playing with and what he is playing. I should have known I was in trouble when one of the primary sources for interview material with Fleck is an old NPR interview. Time for me to roll over at hit my snooze button, I guess.

I spent most of my time watching this film trying to muster up any kind of enthusiasm for the man at the center of the journey. Getting excited about the musical possibilities and the all-too-brief lessons on modern Africa was less difficult, but holy smokes was Fleck an agreeable stiff. If you can handle his utter lack of personality, the film itself might be an enjoyable experience.



-- Capone
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