Posthumous film by Kim Ki-duk filmed in Kyrgyzstan shown in Venice
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Russian-language comedy about Viagra presented at the festival by Kazakhstan
The premiere of the film “God’s Call” by South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, who did not live to be 60 years old and died mysteriously in December 2020 in Riga from covid, took place at the 79th Venice Film Festival. Filmed in Russian. And it was shown in the same hall where in 2016 the great and terrible Kim himself presented the film “Network” about a fisherman who found himself between South and North Korea.
Kim Ki-duk spent the last years of his life in Russia and the post-Soviet space, since he could no longer shoot at home. There, he was anathematized after accusing one of the actresses of ill-treatment on the set of Pieta, which received the Golden Lion in Venice in 2012. In 2019, Kim Ki-duk headed the jury of the Moscow International Film Festival, after which he stayed in Moscow, attended film screenings and social events, because of which they even laughed at him. He never learned the Russian language, although he filmed his movie in it. Then Kim Ki-duk moved to Kazakhstan, filmed the film Dissolve there, later lived and worked in Estonia until he disappeared. It turned out that he wanted to buy a house in Jurmala, get a residence permit in Latvia. For some reason, I went there alone, not knowing any foreign languages, and ended up in the hospital. Communication with him was cut off. And only the persistence of Estonian colleagues hastened the belated news of death.
Now Estonian producer Artur Weber, best known for the Oscar-nominated film Tangerines, was presenting God’s Call in Venice. “I would be glad not to stand on this stage today,” he said. “Kim Ki-duk was supposed to be here. He managed to remove the picture, to make the first installation. She had a working sound. I had to recast it. It was the first time he shot a black-and-white film, but there were still difficulties with color grading. So we had to make the film in black and white. Lithuanian director Audrius Juzenas helped make the final cut. Probably, Kim Ki-duk would scold us if he saw this picture. “The main thing in the film is its story,” he said. In 2020, we were preparing to shoot his new film. We have a documentary film “Kim Ki Duk doc” about his last summer and autumn, about how he worked on the film, which he started shooting in Estonia, is ready.
“God’s Call” was filmed in Kyrgyzstan, and Estonia and Lithuania also officially took part in its production, although the circle of participating countries is much wider. The main roles were played by the Kyrgyz actor Abulai Maratov, who had a birthday on the day of the premiere, and the Kazakh actress Janelle Sergazina. The music was written by the Soviet and Estonian composer Sven Grunberg, known for the film “Hotel” At the Dead Climber’s, a beautiful Estonian animation. A sound engineer from Nepal, Sangam Panda, worked on the picture, who specially came to the premiere and added exoticism with his unusual attire. Abulai Maratov told how he worked with Kim Ki Duk: “It was easy to find a common language with him. An interpreter worked on the site, but when he was not there, the language of emotions was enough for us. Master Kim could explain everything without words. He was an open person.” For Janelle, this is the first visit to Venice, the first major role and the first director in a big movie, as she said. “Working with him is a pleasure,” says the actress. – He lived only cinema and discovered this world, what happens behind the scenes. And I just followed him, watched. I believe that the master was with us today.”
If you do not know that this is a Kim Ki-duk film, then you may not immediately guess, although then his personal signals are guessed. Filming away from his homeland, Kim Ki-duk remained true to himself, although it is strange to hear Russian spoken on the screen. A young man named Daniel meets a beautiful girl on the street. She helps him find a café called The Dream. He will have a reason to show courage and dexterity when some guy grabs a bag from a girl. In the evening the heroes meet. Everything is romantic and beautiful, although the girl is strange. And he is a writer, the author of the book “Love is a dream.” But everything is not as linear as it might seem. The girl sees dreams, and everything that happens in them then happens in her real life. Sleep can be interrupted at any time so that nothing like this happens again in the material world. A well-begun acquaintance turns into a painful life together. The couple makes a strange vow. He should not look at other women and talk to them, and she should not talk to other men. But the rotten jealousy of her beloved, as Daniel will call her, knows no bounds, she will even lead to the death of his former passion. But nothing will stop hellish lovers from kissing at the grave of their unfortunate victim. Love at some point will become disgusting, as it almost always happens with Kim Ki Duk, and it is associated with sadomasochism and sadism. Rough dialogues in Russian cause amazement. Everything is called by its proper name: I did not want your tongue to get into the mouth of another woman, and your scarlet penis to stick into her body. The film crew brought to the hall the props of the film – a wooden bowl-bosom, into which a banana sticks.
In the same room, a few days earlier, in the Biennale College Cinema section, another film was shown in Russian – a Kazakh comedy about Viagra “Mountain Bow” by Eldar Shibanov, shot in the spirit of Bakhtiyor Khudoynazarov, whose debut film “Brother” participated in the “Venetian Classics” program , only without his subtle humor and fabulousness. A young family lives in the steppe, moving from place to place in a van. Dad is a supporter of a healthy lifestyle and cleanliness of the environment. He leaves the city, as the director’s parents once did, having gone to live on Sakhalin after the wedding. Dad in the “Mountain Bow” is also impotent, and because of this, the authoritarian mother meets with someone else’s trucker uncle. Children are left to their own devices, selling wild steppe onions on the highway. 11-year-old Jabai makes his way to China on his own to get the coveted Golden Viagra remedy for his father’s men’s health. It is clear that this is a mockery of gender stereotypes, but everything is not done as easily and elegantly as it could be, in places it is trite and vulgar.
Newspaper headline:
The rotten jealousy of Kim Ki-duk
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