Pieta - Spectacular Revenge of a Mother

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” – Mathew 5:44, Holy Bible, The New King James Version

An average of around 40 people a day took their own lives in 2009, an increase of nearly 19% on 2008. It seems odd that a country that can take so much pride in its economic and social progress in the past 50 years could have so many troubled citizens. But, as Park Yong-ha reportedly said: “This life is so hard.” – Article in The Economist dated July 8^th 2010

Pieta is the third movie I am watching in IFFK which was by Kim Ki-Duk. Dream (in 2008), Beautiful (2010, Kim Ki-Duk was the writer of the movie) and Pieta now in 2012. The main reason for the following of Kim’s movies is that he changes the perceptions on South Korean. That could the reason for him almost being hated in his home country.




Kim Ki-Duk after winning the Golden Lion for Pieta in Venice

 Pieta (Italian word for Pity) starts with a physically challenged guy hanging himself singing a Korean folk song. Lee kang-do sleeps in his apartment with things spread all around, camera moves all around to show that. He gets up in the morning goes straight to a small workshop where he threatens owner for the money back. The wife of the workshop owner wanting the husband not go cripple asks Lee to do whatever he wants to her. He beats her and gets out of the workshop pulls the owner in and inserts his hand into a machine and proceeds to say that the insurance money will be enough for you to give him back the loan.

The same happens in another workshop as well. Lee Kang-do is a hit man hired for collecting unpaid loans. While returning to his apartment he happens to see an old lady following her, he beats her to go back. She insists that it is because of her mistake that he ended up like this. She comes to his room and waits there. Slowly she gets into the house and becomes a part of it. From a loner getting the care makes him addicted to her, not before he puts her through strenuous tests which has the signature of Kim Ki-Duk.

She asks Lee to plant a tree in the vicinity of an old building where Lee had thrown a guy for not paying the loan back. And insist that she be put to rest in this place after death. One day she just disappears and pretends that she has been abducted and in danger. This makes him almost a neurotic and moves him to desperation. Assuming that this could be by someone he harassed in the past, he goes to doors of his past victims. He gets himself into tangles and was sacked by his boss. The sprout of humanity and empathy surfaces in him this is shown as authentic one gets in the movie. She assumes that the time has ripened for the final act of the drama. She goes to an old workshop where she sits in the same chair which had the physically challenged guy in the first scene.

She commits suicide by jumping from the old building which used to be the spot of punishment in front of him. When he dig to put her in Lee founds a half decayed corpse a young man.

He visits one of the families ravaged by his rude and inhumane behaviours. The wife in that household angrily says to him that if she had the power she will shred him to pieces with her car.

He ties himself to her car and she drives her way past the road. In long shot we’re shown the blood being spilled in the run. This is a normal tit for tat movie but said in a different perspetive. It becomes important in Indian context for two reasons: 1. We could compare and discuss on similar emotional blackmailing in the name of love in Indian society. 2. Revenge by women for injustice in Indian society could be read closely with this.