Park Chan-wook says he had to break
out of his comfort zone for his English-language debut Stoker.
South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook's filmmaking always dances
a fine line between sublime and absurd genre ingredients.
"Stoker," his first American-set, English language picture, is no exception.
Park masks absurdity of these events with a typically enthralling style,
particularly a series of sleek tracking shots calculated to draw
viewers into each unsettling moment.
Stoker follows a seemingly ordinary family forced to deal with the untimely death of Michael (Dermot Mulroney),
husband to the cold and distant Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) and father to the awkward India (Mia Wasikowska),
who happens to be celebrating her 18th birthday the very day that her father dies while on a last minute road trip.
Before Michael's body is even settled in the ground, his mysterious long-lost brother, Charlie (Matthew Goode),
arrives to pay his respects and get to know the family he's never met before.
Of course, there's far more than meets the eye with good ol' Uncle Charlie,
but rather than call him out on his sinister ways, young India becomes increasingly infatuated with her ever-influential
and charismatic uncle as manages to weave himself in deeper and deeper within their familial unit.
Unfortunately for the teenager, though, her uncle has taken up seducing the emotionally starved Evelyn,
who never received the kind of love she so desperately wanted from either her husband or her daughter.
Chan-wook’s stamp is all over the movie, from the amazingly detailed transitions (Kidman’s hair fades into a shot of a meadow,
a door opens in one sequence but someone entirely different walks through,
etc) to tension-filled quiet moments around the dinner table. The sound effects are ramped up to mirror India’s seemingly superheroic hearing abilities,
and when death could be around any corner, even the sound of a light switch turning on can cause a jump scare.
While the film features plenty of blood and some gruesome murders, it is more of a coming-of-age tale than anything – albeit a bizarrely sexual and incestuous one.
India’s growth into adulthood and her kaleidoscopic relationship with her mother becomes the focal point as the movie comes to its unexpected climax,
but some of the character motivations lost me as the suspense came to a head. Having only a few hours to reflect on Stoker,
I can’t quite pinpoint the film’s overall message; once the wave of blood ebbs, I’m not sure if there actually is one.
That’ll be fine for some, but for a film that so clearly has a lot to say (and definitely has interesting ways to say them),
I just wish the final piece came together a bit more clearly in the end.
This is one beautifully crafted film.
From the opening credits (which feature a brilliant and assuredly
intentional placement of Goode’s name) to
one of the most perfectly executed dissolves to grace screens in years to a simple crane shot of a child making sand angels,
you’d be hard pressed to find a single frame of
film that doesn’t entice and delight the eye.
Clint Mansell‘s score adds to the beauty,
but it’s a piano duet between India and Charlie that stands out.
I’m unsure if that piece is an existing one or by Mansell (so feel free to educate me in the comments), but the scene is a stunner.
.
I Think this movie's rating is ★★★★☆
