Description:
Birdcage Inn is the third film of Kim Ki-duk, who probably ranks as the Korean director with the most conflicted reputation. The film was released in 1998 and screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Although it was Kim's first film which managed to attract international attention, it was a major failure at the box-office in Korea itself.
The story centers on a 24-year-old woman named Jin-a, who comes to a shabby guesthouse named Birdcage Inn to replace a prostitute who previously worked there. (Some spoilers to follow...) A couple with two children in their late teens run the lodge, located in a small villag
Birdcage Inn is the third film of Kim Ki-duk, who probably ranks as the Korean director with the most conflicted reputation. The film was released in 1998 and screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Although it was Kim's first film which managed to attract international attention, it was a major failure at the box-office in Korea itself.
The story centers on a 24-year-old woman named Jin-a, who comes to a shabby guesthouse named Birdcage Inn to replace a prostitute who previously worked there. (Some spoilers to follow...) A couple with two children in their late teens run the lodge, located in a small village right in front of the ocean. The situation of Jin-a is complicated in many ways. Not only does her pimp force her into prostitution, but the family she lives with also gives her a hard time. The daughter discriminates against the young girl because of her social background, the mother only sees her as a source of capital, the silent father rapes her and the son, last but not least, tries to lose his virginity with her. After the daughter finds out that not only her brother, but also her sexually frustrated boyfriend has apparently slept with Jin-a, the living situation for the young girl becomes unbearable, and she decides to leave. While the daughter rummages through the personal belongings in Jin-a's room, she turns sentimental and reconsiders the girl she has been living with. It's almost like a declaration of love, when the two finally reconcile.
Personalities such as the daughter for instance, whose sexual motifs change markedly throughout the film, might explain why many viewers get so upset about Kim's films. It's not the violence per se which disturbs most viewers -- many Korean films feature far more violence but are more accepted. In my eyes the audience's agitation is connected to the fact that Kim creates characters with a disposition to sell their bodies without constraint, like the characters in Birdcage Inn. While feminists expostulate about Kim's films, the director himself claims to "think of women being on a higher level than men" (Hummel 2002). While this short review is not meant to debate Kim's real perception of women, but to gain access to the meaning of the director's work, it is important to view his characters in a multi-dimensional way. Not only in Birdcage Inn, but also in his other features, the characters are not one-sided and cannot be categorized into "good" and "bad". The father, for example, is first of all thought of as being a good-natured man. When he rapes Jin-a the viewers' perception is challenged and we don't know how to view him, while later on his positive qualities emerge once more.
Like the main character in Bad Guy the father remains silent throughout most of the film. Kim claims that people who do not talk, do so because of being "deeply wounded" (Hummel 2000). Kim's characters are not violent per se. There is an origin to this "physical expression" (Hummel 2000), which is mostly based outside the narration of his films. In this regard Kim is a Korean director deeply concerned about the society he lives in. Throughout the world women are forced into unwanted sex, but in my eyes the director refers through a leitmotif of violence between the two genders to the strong misbalance between the sexes within Korean society. As Kim claims that Koreans "are not free-thinkers" and that "there are social problems in Korea that need attention" (Jung Seong-Il 2002), it seems that the director views his own society like the young girl Jin-a, locked in a birdcage and unable to escape.
Because of this, it is important to break out of a set mindframe when watching Kim's films. The viewer should think about the characters' backgrounds and motives instead of only becoming entangled with the presentation of violence. Kim proves that every character, despite one's actions, is still a human being and that all are the same, despite social background. As Kim says, "the social system is governed by prejudice" (Jung 2002), just as everyone in Birdcage Inn has a negative perception of Jin-a because of her occupation as a prostitute. No one seems to care about gaining insight into her personality, nor raising the question why she ended up making her body available for sexually frustrated men.
It's not only Kim's characters who foster this prejudice, however. Through an interesting visual juxtaposition at the beginning of the film, Kim transfers this notion to the general perception of his uncomprehending audience: Arriving at the seaside village with a large painting under her arm, Jin-a stops at the beach and props up the painting in the sand. The painting (Schwarzhaariges Mädchen by Egon Schiele) shows a skinny, black-haired girl who leans her salacious-looking face playfully on her left hand. Looking not only at the girl's long black stockings and her red-tinted genitals, but also at Schiele's oeuvre, we realize that the girl belongs to the series of prostitutes Schiele painted during his short career. While Jin-a looks at the ocean, Kim films her face from the front, but also juxtaposes it with Schiele's black-haired girl. This shot is not relevant in showing the two persons' common social background, it is merely to demonstrate how even the viewer thinks in social categories, and blames or will blame the girl for what she is. Social division and categorization is for most of us self-evident. On the contrary, for people like Kim Ki-duk– not only in Birdcage Inn but also throughout his oeuvre -- it seems to be the ongoing motivation to make films. (Nils Clauss)
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Manufacturer: You Cinema, Bugwi Films
Release date: 31 October 1998
Number of discs: 1
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