This year has seen two of the greatest Korean directors come to the West to make their first English-language movies. Of Kim Jee-Woon's The Last Stand I can't say anything, because even though I prefer his work to Park Chan-Wook's, I haven't seen The Last Stand yet. I decided it could wait, because whatever I think of their previous work, Park's Stoker is clearly the more interesting of the two films, and I've been eager to see it.
It's easy to look at Stoker and call it a sensual experience, more about sound and visual than story. I think that's true, but it doesn't detract from the story. I don't know that it's terribly deep, or that it will change anyone's life (and if it does, a person whose life is changed by Stoker is probably someone you want to keep in front of you), but it's a coherent, well-told story. Usually when we say that a film is more about the images than the plot we're saying that the plot makes little sense, but that isn't the case with Stoker. The plot is simple but it proceeds naturally, without any missteps or foolishness. It isn't interested in surprising us; the surprises will be audio-visual, rather than plot-oriented. I have no problem with it.
It helps that the film is so well-acted. Matthew Goode, who plays Charlie Stoker, is creepy and charming by turns, as the role requires. His big puppy-dog eyes, his sweet smile, they're extremely sinister. I got the impression early in the film that Park wanted us to suspect that Charlie was some kind of vampire (the movie's title, the fact that Charlie never eats, and we don't see how he kills his first victim), but he pretty clearly isn't one. Still, he would have made a good one.
Nicole Kidman is better as Evelyn Stoker, the widow of Charlie's brother Richard. She's both jaded and wistful; there's a genuine sense of longing from her throughout the picture, a longing for the man she married (Richard had ceased being that man by the time he died), a longing for a good relationship with her daughter, an overarching longing to be cared for. She's a lonely, pointless woman and clearly has been for a long time. I assume that this happened because Richard saw something in their daughter India when she was very young, something that he had also seen in Charlie, and tried to “save” her from her impulses in a similar way to that tried by James Remar's character in Dexter, and he became so caught up in that effort that his relationship with Evelyn suffered. Ever since, she's been trying to matter to someone and has never learned how either to make herself valuable to others, or to value herself.
The big success is Mia Wasikowska as India. I was worried about her coming into the picture; I only knew her as the title character in Tim Burton's poorly-received Alice in Wonderland, and wasn't looking forward to seeing her in this. However, in Stoker she's a real star. It's a genuinely mesmerizing performance. The last time I was as impressed by an actress so young was Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, and while this doesn't equal that performance, it's remarkable none the less.
But again, the film mostly works as a sensual experience. I love the sound in particular. In the opening scene we hear India's voiceover, saying that she can hear things that most people can't, and the sound mix constantly reminds us of how important sound is to her. We hear the footsteps of the spider crawling up her stocking, the heightened sound of the pencil being sharpened, Charlie's “See you soon” at the funeral. At the dinner table, when she and Charlie are sitting alone and he slides his wine glass across to her, that's the loudest glass of wine I've ever heard drunk. I love the scene where she's rolling the egg around on the table, listening to the shell cracking, or where she leaves the metronome running and can hear it all the through the house, timing her movements to it as she climbs the stairs, as she makes snow angels on her bed. The sound in this film is actually more compelling than the visuals.
And that's really saying something, as the visuals are both beautifully-done and intellectually interesting. Obviously there are gorgeous shots that don't require much thought, In particular there's one where a scene of India brushing Evelyn's hair turns into a flashback of India and her father hunting, visualized by Kidman's copper-colored hair transforming into tall grass that is amazing to see. You don't have to think to appreciate the film, but there seem to be rewards in figuring out the subtleties in Park's presentation. I'm still trying to figure out some of the camera movements in the film that seem to indicate a first-person perspective even though they don't. It'll stand some figuring out. I doubt that Park did that accidentally.
Park tells his story as much through these visual cues as through dialog. Take the scene in the classroom where the students are meant to be doing a still-life of a vase of flowers, and it turns out that India is actually doing the design inside the vase rather than the outside that everyone else sees. What does that tell us about India? Again, that she sees things that others don't. It's a subtle reinforcement of that opening voice-over. The whole movie is full of little clues.
The best scene in the whole movie, in my opinion, has no dialog in it at all. India is playing piano, and Charlie comes in and sits down next to her and begins to play along. Very simple, but it's one of the best sex scenes I've ever seen in a film, and there's no sex in it. By comparison Charlie and Evelyn making out to “Summer Wine” or India masturbating in the shower seem pretty pale.
I also like the bit where India comes home in the rain to find the umbrella hanging on the gate. Charlie offered it to her as she left, saying it was going to rain, and she ignored him. She also doesn't take it when she sees it on the gate. Charlie is attempting to be a shepherd for her, and she won't be herded. It's a running theme of their relationship. Charlie pays some lip service to treating her as an equal, sure. The scene on the stairs during her father's memorial service where Charlie says he'll be staying for a while, but that he wants it to be India's decision as well, for instance. But he can be insistent when she demurs. The last thing he ever says is an order: “India, come here! Now!” Charlie has come home seeking her companionship, but it's clear that he wants to be both father and lover to her. By the end of the movie she wants neither. She wants to belong to herself.
That's why it isn't surprising when India kills Charlie at the end. I believe she's fascinated by him, and the film does start with her talking about wanting to be rescued. When she first realizes what Charlie is she's attracted to him, and I think she means to go away with him when he first suggests it, but she knows that if she does she'll have to follow his path, and she would rather follow her own. In retrospect Charlie's death seems inevitable, as in fact do all the deaths in the film.
What's more interesting to me, and seems not at all inevitable, is the death that doesn't take place. Not Pitt, who dies in the original script but survives the movie, but Evelyn. Why does India spare her? She doesn't seem to have any genuine affection for her, and furthermore has just received a pretty scalding lecture from her. You might reasonably expect her to be feeling resentment after hearing it, if she feels anything at all. On the other hand, though she's clearly trying to hurt India, Evelyn seems more pathetic in that moment than anything else. “India, who are you? You were supposed to love me, weren't you?” Evelyn is very much still a child, and India has become a woman with Charlie's death. Perhaps she thinks that particular murder would be beneath her. Perhaps it was Evelyn's request to Charlie that he take her instead of India, if we can see that as her attempting to sacrifice herself to protect her daughter (I'm torn as to whether she's protecting India, upset that neither of them wants her, envious that he prefers India to her...). However India interpreted that conversation may have affected her somehow, but I don't understand her forbearance in this scene. If someone would like to explain it, I'm listening.
BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: I've already gone on at some length about the sound in this, but on top of that the music is magnificent. Clint Mansell is really coming into his own now. He's been doing good work for Darren Aronofsky for years, of course, and his Requiem for a Dream score is rightly highly regarded, but in just the past few years, with Moon, Black Swan, and now this, he's established himself as the best in the business, in my opinion. Also, the song “Becomes the Color” by Emily Wells that plays over the last scene and the credits is perfect. I love it when a movie ends with just the right song. That's a star all by itself, really.
WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: Aside from not understanding why Evelyn is still alive at the end I have no real problem with the movie, so I guess it has to be that. But it doesn't trouble me much.
SCORE: 9/10. I think this is the best 2013 movie I've seen so far, by a fairly wide margin. Furthermore I'll have to agree with
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