MOEBIUSEU/ MOEBIUS

Korea, 2013, 89 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Kim Ki-duk.

Over several decades, Kim Ki-duk has become one of Korea’s outstanding directors. He has made many films, won many awards, including the Golden Lion in Venice.

On the one hand, he has made a number of rather gentle films, especially Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… Spring and 3-Iron.

As the years have gone on, it would seem that he is able to put on screen a great deal of behaviour that many would not expect to see or would think abhorrent.

This is the case with Moebiuseu. The film focuses on a family, father, mother and son who is an adolescent. As the screenplay unfolds, it would seem that the father is a lustful man engaged in illicit relationships. It would seem that the mother is suffering from some kind of mental breakdown. At first, the son seems perfectly normal, serious and a student.

Castration then becomes one of the main focuses of the film, the wife attempting to attack her husband with a knife but, when this fails, she goes to her son’s bedroom and castrates him. Yet, she has a love for her son, a mixture of the genuine and the perverse.

This is an episode has quite an effect on the father who tries to restore his son to some kind of normality, taking him to hospital and to various doctors.

But, there are quite some repercussions for the son, mocked at school by his fellows, especially when they discover the truth about his condition and his difficulty in urinating. There is quite some psychological effect on the son who is initially shocked but somewhat calm, then becomes somewhat demented, promiscuous, and on a downhill spiral in his life.

Some audiences will be put off by the explicit violence – as has been the case with other films by the director. On the other hand, the film offers questions about relationships, family, love, the deterioration of love, physical cruelty, the reality of sexual drives and expression and their consequences.