Film Review : A Werewolf Boy

A new guest contribution by Oded Aronson. – D.D.

A Werewolf Boy (Jo Sung-hee, 2012)

**** (Masterpiece) 

A figure crouches in darkness.  He is scared of his own shadow.  He doesn’t have contact with anyone or anything.  He is alone.

Meanwhile, a new family moves into the property where he lives.  They have moved to the countryside far away from the city’s overwhelming smog in order to attempt improving the health of Suni, their oldest daughter. 

Since the lone figure has stayed to himself for so long, no one knows that he exists.  One night, Suni wanders the property’s grounds on her own, wishing she was anywhere but in that dull place.  The meeting between her and the lone figure is inevitable.

Slowly, the two of them begin to trust each other, but the fact remains that they might as well come from different planets.  He’s a werewolf; wild, feral and knows nothing of human mannerisms.  He lacks the ability to speak, and thinks like an animal.  Eventually, the Suni family discover that the most effective way to deal with him is to train him as though he is a dog.  They also give him a name:  Chul-Soo.

Although progress is very slow, eventually the Suni family comes to understand that Chul-Soo is a  special man whose physical strength, ability to adapt to many situations, and extraordinary kindness is without parallel.  Others cannot see these capabilities in Chul-Soo because in many ways, he is not like them.  He growls at strangers, chomps his food like a maniac, and does not have the ability to contain his emotions.  Chul-Soo does not have the capability to smile through tears; when he is happy, he literally bounds across the room with joy; when he is sad or angry, his growls can be heard miles away. 

One person in particular who cannot abide Chul-Soo is Ji-Tai, the young man who owns the property.  Ji-Tai is an arrogant man who believes he is entitled to special treatment because he collects cash from the people who live in his property.  He openly mocks the dwellers for having less money than he does and every time he opens his mouth to talk about anything, it has the same portentous quality that arises when people learn there will be an upcoming earthquake.

He is also in love with Suni.

For Chul-Soo, Suni is more than just an attractive girl; even though she was afraid of him at first, Suni made the effort to understand and talk to him. Chul-Soo knows deep down that no one else would have been willing to make the effort to understand him on a deep emotional, instinctual, and intellectual level simultaneously. Ji-Tai can see almost immediately that Chul-Soo loves Suni, which makes him a threat to the relationship between Suni and himself that exists only in his mind. 

Consequently, Ji-Tai resorts to gradually more desperate measures to attempt to kill Chul-Soo.  He tries to make the people around him see Chul-Soo as nothing more than a beast whose only intent is to harm others. The fact that some people believe Ji-Tai emphasizes that in some cases, people will willingly side with people they know are bullies if that is what it takes to get rid of societal elements that they hate, fear and misunderstand. 

Fear of the unknown is difficult to deal with, and everybody thinks that their own way of dealing with fear is the most effective because it has allowed them to make peace with the processes which take place inside their own minds. Some people, like Ji-Tai, prefer to lash out and destroy anything which makes life inconvenient for them, while some others (such as Suni) try to talk to others and understand what is going on in both their own minds and the minds of those around them. 

A Werewolf Boy is a deeply intense, emotional plea for all of us to try to understand one another in the midst of chaos.     

Oded Aronson

International Spy(ies)

Espion(s) (Nicolas Saada, 2010)
**** (Masterpiece)

Nicolas Saada’s first feature-length film Espion(s) is a gripping suspense thriller in the tradition of directors that are inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, which includes Roman Polanski, Brian De Palma and Claude Chabrol, as the film includes its McGuffin, the wrong man, and a portrait of a world-weary society. The film begins at night-time at an airport as a couple of baggage inspectors, one who is reading Bettelheim’s The Informed Heart, pluck through an inviolable Syrian-diplomat’s bag. One of them discovers a bottle of cologne, sprays it on himself, which ends up carrying Nitromethane, so it burns his skin and when he drops the bottle, it explodes. He is set on fire, and he dies at the hospital. The other guy, Vincent (Guillaume Canet) has shaggy hair, a beard, workman clothes, and we learn that he used to be a really bright student, “I never had a long-term plan”. He gets fired as his boss discovered that they were stealing, he is possibly facing jail time. The anti-terrorism organization DST approaches him to cooperate to find the real criminals, they hire Vincent as an agent and he is off to London.

Vincent makes his way around London quite gracefully, as the film seamlessly goes from English to French, in the city of the Big Ben, the Millennium Wheel, the Burlington Arcade, and a rising immigration population. Vincent is working with M. Palmer (Stephen Rea) for the MI5 to help them apprehend this guy Peter Burton (Vincent Regan) who with Malik (Alexander Siddig) are bringing illegal explosive chemicals to Europe, and to actually infiltrate them, Vincent will have to befriend Peter’s French wife, Claire (Geraldine Pailhas).

What stands out in this conventional story of espionage are the social-realities that are brought up, the taut moments of suspense, the charming romance, and the mise-en-scene. Vincent’s cover-up is that of a doctor who works for an NGO and the news-footage he watches are of over-burdened doctors in Africa fighting AIDS and the tragedy of Darfur, while for Claire it involves living with the guilt of her ex-husbands suicide and the tristesse of not being able to see her children. The suspense comes from long searches for people and an impressive example takes place in the London Underground Station. While the mise-en-scene contributes to the mood and atmosphere of the film, for example, as when in a museum Vincent and Claire look up at a Pre-Raphaelite painting of an elegantly posed, though melancholy women. The parallels between Claire and the painting, memories of a gift she earlier received, and allusion to Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958) all contribute to a striking moment.

Guillaume Canet who has acted in numerous French films and directed Tell No One (2006) is great as Vincent because his sorrowful mug encapsulates a tucked away melancholy and regret, or it can also be exuberant, fun and charming. While his physical characteristics are similar to the Edgar Ramirez type from Olivier Assayas’ Carlos (2010). The cinematography, by the director of photography Stephane Fontaine, preference is naturalistic as he films people as they are, with stylistic touches that include filming through windows, shifting focal planes, tracking shots, and steady-cam shots. The rhythm and impact of a scene comes across through its editing.

In one of my favorite scenes in the film, Vincent switches channels from watching a zebra documentary to Frank Sinatra playing drums in Otto Preminger’s The Man With The Golden Arm (1955; one of the great Beat movies). Nicolas Saada, who wrote in Cahiers du Cinema in the 1980s (to hear his more recent comments visit Dave Kehr’s website), knows what to do to make a captivating and entertaining film. Espion(s) is a real pleasure.
*****Espion(s) came out January, 2009 in France and is now online In Competition at My French Film Festival, Jan. 14th - 29th 2011. In Toronto, the film is available to rent at Queen and Suspect Video.