Bedevilled (2010)

Revenge stories are common, but films that build up the reasons the revenge had to happen this relentlessly are rare. Bedevilled depicts one woman’s explosion on a remote island, and it spends more than half its runtime portraying the time leading up to that explosion. As a result, the bloody retribution of the back half feels less like a shock than like a foregone conclusion. The film has a sturdiness of construction hard to believe is Jang Cheol-soo’s first feature. My rating is ★4.0.

What it’s about — A woman who takes up a sickle on the island of Mudo

Hae-won (Ji Sung-won), who works as a bank clerk in the city, refuses to testify as a witness to a violent incident, and after friction at work as well, she takes a vacation to Mudo, the remote island where she spent her childhood. Living there is her childhood friend Bok-nam (Seo Young-hee). Constantly abused by her husband, his family, and the villagers, Bok-nam endures each day on the strength of protecting her daughter Yeon-hee alone. Hae-won finds Bok-nam’s repeated pleas for help bothersome and turns away, and that indifference becomes the fuse for an irreversible event. When Bok-nam finally takes up the sickle, the film points its blade at both perpetrators and bystanders.

Direction — Everyday horror built atop beautiful island scenery

Jang Cheol-soo’s direction never treats violence lightly. The abuse scenes of the first half restrain the lurid detail yet create a greater horror through their very ordinariness. The fact that what Bok-nam endures is not a special event but a scene repeated daily, and that the entire island takes it for granted, slowly tightens its grip on the audience. The more beautiful the sun-drenched island scenery, the more horrific the things happening within it feel.

When the film crosses into its back half, its color and rhythm transform. The instant the suppressed rage erupts, the camera no longer retreats and stares head-on at the process of retribution. This abrupt shift could feel rough, but thanks to the thickness of emotion built up beforehand, it never loses its persuasiveness. The three-part structure of perpetration, bystanding, and explosion interlocks without a single gap.

Performance — Seo Young-hee, who joins innocence and madness in a single breath

It would not be an overstatement to call this Seo Young-hee’s film. She connects Bok-nam’s simplicity, her motherhood, and the madness after everything has collapsed in a single breath. The greater the innocence of her smile, the more devastating her ruined self feels, and she carries that drop entirely with her own body. Ji Sung-won, through the cold urban bystander Hae-won, shoulders the audience’s guilt on our behalf. The contrast between the two actors clearly conveys the film’s message that, though no one laid a hand directly, everyone is an accomplice. The realistic rhythm of the supporting players who portray the island’s elders heightens the work’s density.

What the film says — Looking away is itself another violence

Bedevilled aims at the bystander as much as the perpetrator. Those who struck Bok-nam directly are a problem, but Hae-won, who turned away from a hand reaching for help time and again, and the village community that condoned the violence with its silence, are not free from responsibility for the tragedy either. The film asks how looking away becomes another form of violence, and it returns that question directly to the audience. The reason Bok-nam’s retribution feels cathartic yet ultimately leaves the heart heavy is that the blade also points toward us beyond the screen.

Ratings & reception

By OMDb, the IMDb rating is 7.2 out of 10. The Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer is 89 percent, earning high support from overseas critics as well. Invited to the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival, it drew international attention, and many found it all the more impressive as a debut from a first-time director. Seo Young-hee’s performance was at the center of acclaim both at home and abroad, winning her Best Actress at several film awards that year. The intense depictions of violence divide opinion, but there is broad agreement that the violence is a necessity in service of the message.

Verdict

This is by no means an easy film to watch. But if you accept the discomfort and follow it to the end, you come face to face with a mirror that, beyond a simple revenge story, reflects head-on the looking-away and the bystanding of our society. Seo Young-hee’s overwhelming performance meets Jang Cheol-soo’s tight direction to leave an impression so intense it belies its status as a debut. It is a peak of the Korean thriller, more than worthy of four stars.

Recommended for

• Those seeking a thriller carrying an intense social message
• Viewers who want to see an actor’s overwhelming performance
• Anyone ready to face the questions beyond the catharsis of a revenge story