FilmFan
11-26-2009, 08:58 AM
http://www.obscurehorror.com/spiderforest.jpg
Spider Forest aka Geomi sup
Running time: 112 minutes
Directed by: Il-gon Song
Starring: Woo-seong Kam
IMDB rating: 6.8
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407821/
The first 10 minutes feature virtually no dialogue. A man (Min) wakes up in the forest, and walks towards a small cottage he can see up ahead. There he sees a man lying dead, and a woman who he seems to be gasping her last breath. She points at a doorway and says something about spiders. When the man opens it, there is someone else there, who quickly runs off. He chases after the man, but doesn't do a good job of it and ends up badly beaten up. He regains consciousness 16 days later in hospital. He tells the staff that there are dead bodies in the forest, and asks for a cop he knows to be contacted and brought to the hospital.
After meeting with Min, the cop goes to the location described, and finds the two corpses. Due to how long it's been since they died, the bodies have decomposed a fair bit, and are also crawling with spiders where eggs have hatched around (or inside of) them. When his superior arrives and asks about his friendship with Min, the cop clarifies that he's an acquaintance rather than a friend.
Back in the hospital, Min looks at an old photo he had with him and starts to remember the past. At home with his wife, he tells her about a dream he had that she died, and she explains that the dream was real, and that she did die. Then he is out at dinner, meets a woman who claims to know him from the past, and ends up sleeping with her. Then he wakes up, but is still with the woman in the past.
So, is this a flashback within a flashback? And who killed the people in the forest? And why was he randomly out in the forest in the first place? And what's his connection to the cop? And did the woman really know him in the past? And what's the deal with his wife? And what (if anything) is the significance of the spiders?
Some of these questions get answered. Some don't. On top of that, many more questions arise during the rest of the film, most of them being left unresolved. Apparently the writer-director produced a script, then went through it and removed as much as he could without making the whole thing incomprehensible. It sounds like I'm joking, but no, according to an interview that's really what he did.
I'm starting to get a bit fed-up with films that base themselves on an intriguing mystery, then end up leaving you without a resolution. If this was just a case of me lacking the intelligence to understand, then fair enough. Obviously I'd be dissapointed to not understand something when many others did, but. In this instance though, it's another film where nobody seems to understand what really went on or why the characters behaved the way they did.
There seems to be a viewpoint held by some people (film makers and fans) that there's something superior about a story that's told out of sequence, and/or that ambiguity is preferable to certainty. If this film had ended in a way that explained things a bit more clearly, I think it would've been all the better for it. Being original isn't always a good thing, as there is sometimes a reason why certain things are done a certain way. Additionally, several films in the past have taken a similar approach to storytelling, so it's not that original anyway.
Despite all of the above, I still think that this is a fairly good film, in that it kept me entertained throughout and had an interesting plot. Sometimes a story that's told in flashback loses it's effect, because the events lack the sense of urgency that most films have, and you know part of what'll happen because of who is telling/remembering the story. That isn't the case here. I'm not sure why, but for whatever reason I didn't feel that way watching this. Also, though I would've liked more explanation for what went on, the film doesn't have a non-ending. We are given something, it's just hard to know what exactly that something was.
6.25
Spider Forest aka Geomi sup
Running time: 112 minutes
Directed by: Il-gon Song
Starring: Woo-seong Kam
IMDB rating: 6.8
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407821/
The first 10 minutes feature virtually no dialogue. A man (Min) wakes up in the forest, and walks towards a small cottage he can see up ahead. There he sees a man lying dead, and a woman who he seems to be gasping her last breath. She points at a doorway and says something about spiders. When the man opens it, there is someone else there, who quickly runs off. He chases after the man, but doesn't do a good job of it and ends up badly beaten up. He regains consciousness 16 days later in hospital. He tells the staff that there are dead bodies in the forest, and asks for a cop he knows to be contacted and brought to the hospital.
After meeting with Min, the cop goes to the location described, and finds the two corpses. Due to how long it's been since they died, the bodies have decomposed a fair bit, and are also crawling with spiders where eggs have hatched around (or inside of) them. When his superior arrives and asks about his friendship with Min, the cop clarifies that he's an acquaintance rather than a friend.
Back in the hospital, Min looks at an old photo he had with him and starts to remember the past. At home with his wife, he tells her about a dream he had that she died, and she explains that the dream was real, and that she did die. Then he is out at dinner, meets a woman who claims to know him from the past, and ends up sleeping with her. Then he wakes up, but is still with the woman in the past.
So, is this a flashback within a flashback? And who killed the people in the forest? And why was he randomly out in the forest in the first place? And what's his connection to the cop? And did the woman really know him in the past? And what's the deal with his wife? And what (if anything) is the significance of the spiders?
Some of these questions get answered. Some don't. On top of that, many more questions arise during the rest of the film, most of them being left unresolved. Apparently the writer-director produced a script, then went through it and removed as much as he could without making the whole thing incomprehensible. It sounds like I'm joking, but no, according to an interview that's really what he did.
I'm starting to get a bit fed-up with films that base themselves on an intriguing mystery, then end up leaving you without a resolution. If this was just a case of me lacking the intelligence to understand, then fair enough. Obviously I'd be dissapointed to not understand something when many others did, but. In this instance though, it's another film where nobody seems to understand what really went on or why the characters behaved the way they did.
There seems to be a viewpoint held by some people (film makers and fans) that there's something superior about a story that's told out of sequence, and/or that ambiguity is preferable to certainty. If this film had ended in a way that explained things a bit more clearly, I think it would've been all the better for it. Being original isn't always a good thing, as there is sometimes a reason why certain things are done a certain way. Additionally, several films in the past have taken a similar approach to storytelling, so it's not that original anyway.
Despite all of the above, I still think that this is a fairly good film, in that it kept me entertained throughout and had an interesting plot. Sometimes a story that's told in flashback loses it's effect, because the events lack the sense of urgency that most films have, and you know part of what'll happen because of who is telling/remembering the story. That isn't the case here. I'm not sure why, but for whatever reason I didn't feel that way watching this. Also, though I would've liked more explanation for what went on, the film doesn't have a non-ending. We are given something, it's just hard to know what exactly that something was.
6.25