BREATH

Korea, 2007, 84 minutes, Colour.
Chang Chen Zia.
Directed by Kim Ki- Duk.

In recent years Kim Ki- Duk has achieved a world-wide reputation and has been making brief, more focused films (Binjip, The Bow). It is the same here, a small drama in 84 minutes.

A lonely housewife is fascinated by the TV news of a murderer on death row attempting suicide. She visits him in prison, bringing some colour and joy to his life, and some intimacy. This is a relief for him as he is in a cell with several others who torment him. Her unfaithful but demanding husband has to deal with this situation.

Breath is life. Breathing corresponds to our moods, our emotions, our crises. The woman gives herself to the prisoner but wants to take his breath before he is executed. Fellow prisoners want to take his breath. A blend of the realistic and the stylised, Kim Ki- Duk offers a challengingly strange short story.

1.Kim Ki- Duk’s reputation? His making brief films, regularly, annually? Their intensity?

2.The Korean settings, the city and streets, affluent homes, prison cells, the prison yards, the snow? The musical score, the range of songs?

3.The blend of the realistic and the symbolic? Stylised? Especially the end in the snowman and the prisoners all together?

4.The prison story: the walls, the knives and the scraping on the walls, the art? The relationships, sexual? Dependence? The inherent violence? The prisoner and the sharp object? Suicide or murder attempt? The previous attempts? Hospital, recovery? His being due for execution? Murdering his family? No explanation? The clashes in the cell, the photos and the prisoners destroying them, chewing them?

5.The other prisoners, their personalities, life in the cell, the mixed attitudes, warmth, violence?

6.The woman at home, her bond with her child, her sculpture, nothing else to do at home, the expectations of her husband, the television information about the prisoner, his attempts? Her husband, his infidelity? The woman, her deciding to visit the prison, the initial encounter, her warmth, the prisoner wary? His never having had visitors – but curiosity about the woman visitor? The further visits, the pictures of the seasons, her clothes, the songs accordingly? The kissing and embrace? The reaction of the authorities? The beating of the prisoner? Her giving him her picture?

7.The husband and his macho expectations, his own cheating, his brutality towards the woman, following her, watching the television, his bashing his wife, repenting, breaking off with the girl, her coming to the door and slapping him? The wife throwing the remote control at him?

8.The woman and her smashing the statue? The aftermath of her husband’s treatment?

9.The portrait on the wall, prisoner sketching the woman? The other photo – and the woman photographing herself naked? His execution due, the final visit, the husband taking his wife, the little girl in the car, the husband playing in the snow and building snowmen? The snowball fights?

10.The woman, the sexual encounter, the effect on the man, on herself? The bare walls, no seasons? The breath in the sexual experience? Her breath, wanting to take his life with her breath and save him from execution? His breaking free and breathing? She being exorcised of her demons, going outside, playing in the snow with her family? The final song?

11.Back in the prison, one prisoner killing the other, taking his breath? The tableau at the end?