Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (107235)	8/6/2005 12:32:28 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Sounds like an interesting movie: DVD Review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorum (2001)(Widescreen)(DTS) Ever wonder about those people you might barely notice—the taxi driver, the clerk at the 7/11, the guy waiting for a bus, the pizza guy? Ever wonder what their lives might be like, what sort of secrets they hold? Their lives might be as ordinary and mundane as their jobs would lead you to believe, or there might be a whole lot more beneath the surface, meaning pain and misery, or maybe sweetness and light. Or you might choose not to think about them at all, and just go on about your business (that's certainly the easiest route). Sun-yeong (Jin Young-Jang) is one of those people. He makes a meager living driving a cab, and moves into a shabby tenement apartment in Seoul. His neighbor across the hall, Yong-Hyun (Myeong-min Kim) endures brutal beatings from her husband on a daily basis. One night after being beaten nearly to death by him, Yong-Hyun decides she's had enough and kills the bastard. Sun-yeong, already somewhat smitten with her, helps her dispose of her husband's corpse in the woods behind their building. The two of them become involved with each other, but the building carries a curse from a 30-year-old murder, and it holds sway over the lives of every resident (not to mention that the previous resident of the taxi driver's apartment died horribly). Meanwhile, a novelist from down the hall knows more about the building's history than its latest residents, and draws from it for his latest work. Jong-Chan Yun's Sorum isn't for everyone. It's not quite a ghost story, despite what the above synopsis might make you think. It's not really a horror movie either, with very little in the way of violence or action. Its pacing is deliberate and demands strict attention until the movie's plot snaps into place towards the end. Its characters are not especially likable, and its grim setting doesn't help matters much. But as hard as it is to sum up, it's an unusually disturbing and haunting film. The dismal apartment building is enough to make anyone miserable, and is itself almost a character; towards the movie's end there's a definite urge to see the place dynamited and be rid of its shabby hallways, dingy rooms, and nasty little secrets once and for all. Director Yun suffuses the movie with dread and hopelessness, framing it all with painterly shot compositions and drab colors. Water serves as a constant theme through the movie, in the form of rain, toilets, showers, sinks, and drainpipes. And all the while there's the distinct feeling that nobody is going to make it through the movie intact. Psychological drama? Maybe that's it, but then again…not quite. The DVD's special features consist of a production documentary that's broken up into several segments, and includes interviews with the movie's three principals and the director, and a few on-set bits. It's a skimpy little doc, but it actually gets more across than a lot of the windbag making-of features on some bigger-budget movies. There's also a theatrical trailer for the movie, and a photo gallery. Subtitles are available in English or Spanish. So is there a ghost in Sorum, or does it just tap into an evil that's in each resident of the building? Is there something supernatural inside the crumbling walls of the tenement, or is it something much more ordinary than that? Those questions are never quite answered, and that's what makes Sorum such a challenging movie. But one thing's for sure: if you're patient enough to make it all the way to the end, those questions make it a movie that, for a while anyway, you won't be able to shake. — JERRY RENSHAW