Old Boy by Chan-Wook Park

            Horror cinema is grounded on a play amid revealing and withholding visual information between expanded and restricting our vision.  Old boy manipulates this general tension due to the unorthodox and meticulous mise-en-scene as well as its composition.  The movie utilizes mythical, philosophical, and psychological theme in including repressed desires, love, feelings and morality.  The profound content is however not presented in a direct strategy in the whole movie.  In the film  composition and mise-en-scene is the major  element which the director utilizes to  subtly visualize and  connote the  profound concept of the  film and the  narrative in a manner that is subtle such as the utilization of  metaphors which are used in literature.

Graphics and colors images are utilized to represent characters as well as their general fates. In this film, five colors are majorly utilized on costumes, props, and sets.  The utilized colors are black, red, green, as well as violet.   Amongst the colors the most interesting color is violet. Violet is a Sooo-A.  The violet color can be viewed in a triangular shape pattern on supports the director utilizes objects such as box, umbrella, handkerchief and envelope. Purple or violet has symbolic images which represent feminine, death, elegance as well as feelings which are repressed. All the images are therefore linked to the concept of Soo-A.  After she dies the generated trauma impairs and imprisons Woo-Jin psychologically. The utilized triangular shaped patterns which are connected to the purple color are the general visual representations of the developed psychological twisted nature of Woo-Jin.  The Most interesting section is that the room’s wallpaper where Mi-Do is held for her own safety is of similar color with distinct patterns. The film’s director would have utilized a similar color as the character changes and becomes a parallel character at the end.  Based on the perception of the protagonist a character is just an object of repressed desires and sensations. However, the director utilized this concept to show the images of salvation and hope on the character thus he utilized a structure that is crystal. Cinema memory, memory is essential in elaborating distinct nuances of the memory and the understanding of cinema (Susannah, 336).  The cinemas are thus used to generate a narrative that is not straightforward but instead reveals fewer reflections (Susannah, 336).

O-dae-su, the major character has been imprisoned in a room which is dark and narrow for 15 years without the understanding of why it happened (Chan-wook, 8:45).  When the character is released from the room, he begins to establish the individual who was responsible for all his mysteries of the incarceration as well as abduction and the notion behind his act.  Besides the thematic concept  of the film  than  vengeance is worst than Oblivion  the film is effective in  revealing the fact that an individual’s thoughtless tongue can generate catastrophic  impacts  for the  mentioned individual as well as the person who is characterized by speech.  When the major character O-dae-su is in school he is able to witness a relationship that is incestuous that is between suah and Woo-jin (Chan-wook, 12:45).  He communicates about his witness to his own friend and urges him not to tell the story to anybody else.  The story spreads to the whole school after the story had been blabbered to the general school thus generating an additional rumor.  As the result of this mistake and the rumor Suah commits suicide after the sensation of a false pregnancy. Woo-jin develops an urge of plotting a vengeance on O-dae-su for what he did to him. He accomplishes this by making him develop a relationship with his own daughter (Chan-wook, 32:42).  After the realisation of the happening O-dae-su begins to beg him not to reveal the context of this relationship to his daughter by getting rid of his tongue, and later craves to attain forgiveness for what he did.  The completion of this scene explains the statement that Woo-jin had communicated to O-dae-su when the movie begun.  The statement held that a sand grain and a mass rock are at the end mutual because they are both bound to sink when inserted in water.  This, therefore, meant that whether it is a rumor that is malicious or the use of a term without giving many thoughts it is bound to hurt the other individual  who is aimed by the act which may result in death.

            The theme can best be explained by the scene where O-dae-su kneels with the aim of cutting his tongue using scissors in order to expiate his own faults.  The director utilizes mise-en-scene in the scene in order to enhance the theme’s convergence.  O-dae-su gathers his courage’s and picks the scissors, wrapping them using a purple handkerchief where the complex patterns of geometry are developed (Chan-wook, 48:45).  The utilization of the geometric patterns is effective in developing the thoughts that O-dea-su is a difficult individual in comparison to other individuals in the society.  The disparity of O-dea-su with other individuals in the society would thus refer to the involvement that is inevitable in the vengeance cycle which mainly involves his general rumor responsibility. This is the enclosed by the school environment where the event took place and the incestuous relationship which was manipulated with his daughter as a result of the vengeance by Woo-jin. Another mise-en-scene utilized through the prop is the use of scissors. The act of cutting O-dae-su’s tongue by the use of scissors is a clear representation of his deep and sincere regret in regard to his own wrong utilization of tongue. This is the extreme determination that he shows of not desiring to make the same mistake as well as the desperate desire to acquire clemency and forgiveness.

Editing additionally contributes to a communication of the film's thematic concept which helps the audiences to understand the plot development of the film.  Through the editing continuity, especially action matches and match cut, the film’s director smoothes the time transition and then establishes shots coherence which is based on logic.  In the scene where O-dea-so cuts his tongue, the director matches his actions which involve placing the tongue between the scissors blades and then chopping it across the presented double shoots (Chan-wook, 47:15). The director is able to make the presented action to seem as if the motion happens in uninterrupted nature.  The smooth shots connection is effective in establishing tension to the required degree and then shifts to the following scene in a very short time.  This helps the plot in developing clearly and coherently without making the film’s audiences to experience any unclear scene or to experience boredom.  In this manner, the clear plot development is effective in enabling the audiences to feel both sympathies as well as empathy for the major character in an explicit way.  This is because the audiences can comfortably place themselves in his position and be able to experience both his agony as well as the internal conflict which includes sudden guilt realization and the general moral that it was not necessary to say the unnecessary terms to his friend.  This, therefore, helps to understand the film as the director utilized effective editing to be able to generate a clear communication between the audiences and the film. The audiences can, therefore, be able to feel how the movie has accomplished to deliver its thematic concept through the use of editing features.  This has thus been crucial in developing a clear plot for the film thus making the concept be more open to the audience.

The use of diegetic sounds has also been effective in developing the theme.  This is mainly because when O-dae-su picks his scissors and places them in his mouth the background music which is the final waltz plays in the background.  As O-dae-su places his tongue in between the scissors blades and begins to scissor his own screaming and the sound of the chopping blades is reduced and the background music volume is lowered a bit (Chan-wook, 48:50).  A slow and a plaintive sound the string instruments is utilized in order to reconcile with  O-dae-su’s  miserable circumstance in that he is necessitated to beg Woo-jin so that he do not have to tell the certainty to his daughter. His screaming and the sound of the scissoring act generates and sends a message  that the thoughtless speaking consequences based on others is disastrous in un-imaginary form and must, therefore, be avoided at all costs.

Cinematography which generally includes angle and shot addresses a particular section of the film’s theme that based on whether an individual speaks about others with a specific objective or none, the mentioned terms will later be on everybody’s tongue and this will cause suffering from the rumors that are inflated.  Through O-dae-su close-ups shots on his hands as well as his eyes, the film’s director is able to catch his enmity and momentary hesitation towards Woo-jin (Chan-wook, 50:45).  His glaring eyes and his shaking hands made him seem as if he was communicating the fact that he was only speaking based on what he saw and he did not hold any negative intention when he did it.  This, therefore, shows that the fact that his intention was not bad he could not be able to predict that such a catastrophe would happen and he is sorry for his act as he regrets what he did.  However, in the next scene, the back of his suffering and kneeling is taken at a high eye view camera angle. The angle of the camera is therefore able to generate the logic that woojin is the general victim to whom O-dae-su is expected to genuflect and request for his compassion regardless of his guilt size and responsibility.

The director utilizes a lighting scene that is green in contrast to other scenes which are natural lighting in order to make the situation dramatic.  This is mainly because green is often unusual when utilized to describe the normal existence of individuals.  The lighting therefore communicates that O-dae-su has been deprived the right to live his normal life. The lighting therefore is effective in highlighting O-daesu’s disparity with other individuals in the society because he is not entitled to normal living based on his prior sin of gossiping.

 

            Work Cited

Chan-wook Park. Oldboy. 2003. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/

Susannah, Radstone. Cinema and memory. Pdf