Saturday Morning Quiz:
The above poster advertises:
- The Vatican’s rationale for requiring abstinence
- An ice-skating team preparing for Vancouver
- Thirst, a movie about Vampires
- Kim Jong Il’s growing fear of rong-regged women
If you answered “1”, it’s not women the Vatican is worried about. “2”, she’s not wearing skates. “4”, you racist!
Prior to being deemed too risque in South Korea because it portrays a priest being straddled, this poster advertised Chan-wook Park’s Thirst, a film that centers on a priest’s accidental transformation into a vampire.
(Note: The original intention of this advertisement was to depict a bat-like image, not necessarily a novel take on erotic asphyxiation—though I am now intrigued by the potential of getting rabies and the advantages of purchasing a clerical collar)
Wanting to help humanity through more than just offering absolution from a confession box, Father Sang-hyeon (Kang-ho Song) offers his body to science by traveling to Africa and volunteering in experimental procedure designed to eradicate the deadly EV virus. Inevitably, the virus ravishes Sang-hyeon’s body, resulting in a blood-purging scene that rivals the blood-spraying suicide scene in Michael Haneke’s Cache.
Given that five hundred volunteers perished prior to Sang-hyeon, the doctors perfunctorily give him a blood transfusion and pronounce him dead shortly thereafter—he has no pulse, and most of his blood resides on the austere hospital floor—but as the Father’s face is covered, he recites a prayer and becomes the sole survivor. An immediate prophet, he is flocked upon by the faithful who clamor for miracles and absolution.
Ironically, the life-saving blood has come from a vampire; thus begins the good Father’s transition away from selfless prelate. To Park’s credit, he fashions a story that could have gone off the deep end much sooner and delved into debauchery, criticizing faith as superstition. And while this commentary can be rendered from Thirst, it is slow-played and Father Sang-hyeon’s plight is illustrated as genuine—realizing the transformation his body has undergone, Sang-hyeon resigns to die before taking another soul’s life; at the same time, he can’t let himself perish because it would contradict his inherent stance against suicide, which he earlier refers to as “a sin greater than murder” (I would have used the original Korean, but I don’t speak it—though I can say “hello” thanks to Arrested Development—and I picked up “carrot” one night in a bar).
Creatively, Sang-hyeon survives by haunting hospitals under the guise of charity work; he lives primarily from draining the blood from coma victims—though not enough to lower their vitals to the point of death or danger. In addition, his blind father often slits a wrist to and offers a pint to Sang-hyeon, preventing the EV virus from re-emerging and ravaging his body.
So far, Sang-hyeon controls his rising desire to imbibe blood and suffocates his libido by routinely smacking his groin with a metal ruler, but this is all thrown into upheaval when Kang-woo, a perpetually sick hypochondriac, his mother Lady Ra and their servant/Kang-woo’s wife Tae-ju arrive at the hospital seeking a miracle from Father Sang-hyeon. This marks the end of the first act, which deals primarily with the clergyman’s inner conflict; the second act imagines a taboo love story.
Played provocatively and eerily by Ok-bin Kim, Tae-ju lures Sang-hyeon into the web that superficially composes her life of depravation and abuse. Taunted by Tae-ju’s eroticism and his priestly need to offer salvation, Sang-hyeon is trapped, and while Tae-ju’s life isn’t perfect, she practices self-mutilation to coax Sang-hyeon to perform the sole act he refuses—murder.
From here on out, the film goes a bit awry as Sang-hyeon eventually turns Tae-ju into a vampire. Even though the events that lead to her transformation are crafted with a meticulous hand and are tensely suspenseful, the denouement of the film gravitates toward the predictable. Her acquired immortality and desire for the inherent super-human power far outweighs Sang-hyeon’s original intention for turning her—an eternal partnership sustained by love, not carnage.
I can’t say the last act isn’t a fun ride. It’s intelligently done, though a tad glacial until the last five minutes, which might be one of the most honest and sentimental moments that Sang-hyeon and Tae-ju share throughout the film.
DYL MAG Score: 7
