Is Kim Ki-duk making to many movies lately? The Haifa International Film Festival brought two the viewers here two of his recent films, and if we look at his filmography we can see that since the beginning of the decade he made at least one film this year. Certainly, it is impossible to keep the quality level as high as a masterpiece like 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring', and this may be one reason that some of his fans are disappointed with part of his latest films. I actually see him looking permanently at diverse themes, exploring new techniques of telling relevant stories. This is the case with this ecological movie (one way to describe it) with the action set in Japan.
The story starts in the area located around the Fukushima reactor accident five years ago and follows the life of a young couple who are expecting their first baby. The authorities decide mandatory evacuation, and the fears about the child bearing the consequences of the exposure of the parents to radiation materialize as a mysterious character who obsessively follows the couple trying to influence them into making an abortion. Kim describes with sensibility the relation between the two, their doubts, their agony as the balance of insanity swings between the woman and the man. The vision gradually broadens as the implications of the nature disaster transcend the small family circle. Are we dealing with a naive ecologist message, or is this a more universal set of questions about what we (as in mankind) do to nature, to the planet, to ourselves? I liked the film, both because Kim keeps enough mystery and does not force his conclusions on us. He is helped by the delicate acting of his actors Natsuko Hori and Tsubasa Nakae. If it would be just for the final scene, all the rest would be made insignificant, but the rest is not bad either, or at least I should say - I liked it; it's for the first time that the Korean master of philosophy, of dialog between man and nature and their spiritual dimensions dives into the very immediate but so urgent and critical issues related to politics and the relation between our industrial and social life and the environment. Some may find the combination non-wining. I am not among them
