It's easy to call Oldboy a movie about a revenge. It is, after all. Lee Woo-Jin wants revenge on Oh Dae-Su, Oh Dae-Su doesn't realize it for much of the film, but he wants revenge on Lee Woo-Jin. And each man is changed tremendously in the process. Lee Woo-Jin is not the nerdy photographer we see in flashbacks, but a suave millionaire who exacts his plan in style. Oh Dae-Su is not the pudgy lech we see causing trouble at the police station in the film's beginning, but a fearless fighter and nigh-detective with real purpose in his life. And yet, neither of them is better for it.
What's striking is that the spark that begins this conflagration is so tiny. Works like Match Point and Breaking Bad have toyed with themes about tiny events and small coincidences having outsized effects on people's lives. But Oldboy outpaces them on this front. Oh Dae-Su is almost done with his school, moving on. When he sees two people fooling around by chance, he absent-mindedly repeats the gossip to his friend, barely even aware of who they were or what he was seeing. And this small action led to innumerable deaths, torture of the living both psychological and physical, and irrevocable changes for Oh Dae-Su and the lives of the people he's touched.
The hollow consumption of revenge has been examined by more than a few works, stretching back at least as far as The Scarlet Letter and the name-checked Count of Monte Cristo. But there's something bitterly ironic about all this fuss, the entire impetus from the film, beginning with some punk kid thoughtlessly relaying some vague information about something he saw but didn't really process, appreciate, or care about. The film drives the irony home by having Oh Dae-Su scribble a list of his possible enemies in his journals, and have his best friend mention the hundreds of people's lives he's ruined, and instead of the revenge stemming from his many misdeeds, it's from an offhand comment that, unbeknownst to him, had a butterfly effect.
I think that's why this film stays with me a bit. I think it's why, beyond the twists that give it a memorable "holy crap" moment, the bloody end stands out so much. Because the entire enterprise is framed as so empty, so fruitless, so damaging to all involved. Lee Woo-Jin is desperately trying to rectify the grief he feels for the loss of his sister and lover. And yet once he has, once his plan reaches fruition, he asks what he has to live for, imagines her death once more, and kills himself, laden with the realization that all his grand plans cannot heal those wounds.
And he puts Oh Dae-Su in the same position, realizing that his quest for revenge was just as much a sham, that he's done more damage by becoming this monster than if he'd simply died, or gone to live his life, or never bothered to go on this Herculean (or Batman-esque) attempt to get to the bottom of what happened. That's why at the end of the film, he asks to forget, he asks to wipe away the revenge, wipe away that past rather than let it linger with him, to clear his heart of the anger and scars inflicted upon him over the past fifteen years. And all of this, every last bit of it, begins with a brief word to a gossip that the original informant didn't even remember. The absurdity of it, the senselessness of it, lingers far beyond the shock of the film's reveals.
Despite that, it's a film that could run on plot alone. The story of a man trapped without knowledge of why or by whom, who is freed and sets out to find his captor, works at an elemental level to rope in the viewer. The opening segment depicting Oh Dae-Su's is enthralling as a psychological experiment, making us wonder what it would be like to go through something so isolating and dehumanizing. It puts us on Oh Dae-Su's side as we too wonder who would do this to him, why they did it, and hope that he gets his revenge. There's a relentless momentum to the film, that parcels out these discoveries well along the way, while guiding us through Oh Dae-Su's maladjusted reentry into the world.
Park Chan-Wook's direction adds to the atmosphere of the film with his deft camera work and creative choices in presentation. The film is bathed in dingy, Fincher-esque greens and blues that convey the grittiness of the proceedings. While the long-take fight scene is the most notable visual flourish in the film, Chan-Wook uses a great deal of creative framing to convey the emotions of his scenes, from layering Dae-Su, Woo-Jin, and the picture of Woo-Jin's sister in the same scene, to the transitions that blend one scene into another.
There are, of course, those shocking reveals. Watching the film for the second time takes away the jaw-dropping reaction at the true identity of Mi-do. (Who, on second watch, feels less developed than I remembered). But to the film's credit, the twist still works on rewatch because of the effect it has on Oh Dae-Su. His aghast response, his near insanity that once again throws him into vacillations between seeking pity and mercy and making threats and vows of retribution, while over the top, still has power even if the twist itself is muted.
There's a degree of magical realism to Oldboy. The idea that Lee Woo-Jin could pull off his convoluted scheme even with the seemingly unlimited resources at his disposal, that hypnosis could work as well and as clearly as depicted in the film, that all the players would play their roles as necessary for everything the fall the way they did is more than a little unrealistic. And yet it works because more than anything, Oldboy feels like a parable, a fable, rather than a story that aims towards realism.
It is a fable about revenge, taking whatever liberties with plausibility it needs to in order to thread the needle of its message, of the hollowed out emptiness of anger and revenge and its inability to make up for loss. The tragedy is amplified by the nigh-random incident that sets it all into motion. But Oldboy is about more than revenge. It's about the compromises we make, about the lies we tell ourselves, about the way small events can shift the tides of lives, and about the people we can become when the baser elements within us--The Monster and the Calculating Avengers--consume us.
[8.2/10] Definitely the best episode of the season so far. I appreciate how both stories in this one dealt with parental legacy, and how each did a double-twist for maximum emotional punch, with plenty of room for great humor.
The A-story, which featured Eleanor and Michael meeting Eleanor’s mom, Donna, in the midst of her new life, worked well. I liked the idea that Eleanor, forever jaded by her mom’s behavior, didn’t buy this new suburban backdrop for her mom, and so she was set to figure out what the scam was. The way the episode went back in forth -- having Eleanor accept that her mom wasn’t conning these people, then finding the money and being convinced that she was right original, and then harmonizing those views and realizing that while her mom can’t fully let go of her old life, she’s hesitantly comfortable in this one -- was really strong. It played the emotions of those scenes well, made for a compelling series of mini-twists, and elucidated a lot about the relationship between Eleanor and her mom.
I’ll admit, the episode did lean into an unfortunate Good Place tendency in my eyes, which is to write the emotional conflict on the screen. I feel like the audience could get that Eleanor was so psychologically against Donna being a good mom now because it meant that she could have been the mom Eleanor wanted and needed before, without Eleanor declaring it. And there’s a couple other moments where the characters announce their emotional states in a way that was less-than-natural. But the setup worked, and the way the episode took Eleanor from suspicion to resignation to vindication to genuine acceptance was well done. Plus, the episode not-so-subtly did some solid work about how Michael is becoming a parental figure in Eleanor’s life.
I also really liked the B-story, with Tahani going to apologize to her sister. It too did the double twist, with Tahani finally mustering up the humility to say she’s sorry despite her resentments, Kamilah rejecting the apology and starting a whole new round of resentment, only for Tahani to recognize the source of their rivalry and apologize honestly and truly regardless of whether Kamilah accepts it. It’s a strong story, that again, does well to go back and forth with the main character’s emotional state in a way that mirror’s Eleanor’s journey.
I also loved the setup, reveal, and epiphany, that the piece of abstract art the gang was puzzling over in the beginning turned out to be a representation of the way that Tahani and Kamila’s parents would set them against one another. This is probably a bit of a reach, but I’d go so far as to call it Vonnegut-esque in its ability to make emotional hay from a piece of non-representational art. Tahani realizing that it’s her parents, not her sister, who’s the source of her frustrations, and that Kamila labored under them too, is again, a strong theme to play with, and it makes their reconciliation feel completely earned.
This is also a thoroughly funny episode, potentially the funniest of the season. One nice thing about the pairing here is we finally got a little adorable Jason/Janet time, and watching them wander around and appraise the art was very amusing. Chidi being mesmerized by Kamilah and then chipperly lamenting his future in a Hungarian prison was a big laugh, as was Kamilah’s adoring coterie. On the Eleanor side, lines about Keyser Soze and running gags about Eleanor’s mom not washing her bras landed superbly, and the absolute winner was Michael and the adorably square Dave bonding over architecture, with milquetoast excitement and designs with a lack of bathrooms.
Overall, this one was a real winner, that hopefully portends great things for the season!
