Samaritan Girl
Encyclopedia
Samaritan Girl is a 2004
South Korea
n film written and directed by Kim Ki-duk
.
. To reach this end, Jae-yeong is prostituting
herself while Yeo-jin acts as her pimp, setting her up with the clients and staying on guard for the police. Things take a turn for the worse when Yeo-jin gets distracted from her duty and the police raid the motel where Jae-yeong is meeting with a client. To avoid getting caught, Jae-yeong jumps out of a window, fatally injuring herself.
After Jae-yeong's death, Yeo-jin blames herself and to ease her own conscience, sets to return all of the money they earned to the clients while sleeping with them herself. Eventually Yeo-jin's father, a policeman, is devastated when he discovers what she is doing. He starts following her discreetly and confronts her clients with increasingly violent results. Finally, he ends up brutally killing a client.
For the rest of its duration, the movie follows the father and daughter on a short trip to the countryside, where they both sense something is wrong with the other, but are unable to confront each other directly. In the end, the law catches up with the father, who hopes to have done enough to prepare Yeo-jin for her life without him.
The recurring theme of transcendence through a transformative encounter defines the course of the film, as Yeo-jin attempts to come to terms with her complicity in Jae-yeong’s incomprehensible act by retracing her friend’s liaisons through a meticulously kept personal diary that had also served as an account of their financial progress towards their hoped-for European trip. Contacting each client under the familiar pretence of shared intimate history, Yeo-jin embarks on a guilt-ridden journey of sexual and financial restitution: arranging to reunite with each of Jae-yeong’s “dates”, consummating their transaction, revealing the plight of the “first” Yeo-jin, then concluding their meeting by returning the money once given to her friend by them. Her unexpectedly sincere, obliquely Samaritan act proves cathartic to the thoughtless, exploitative clients, turning their seemingly inconsequential dalliance with the under-aged prostitute into a humbling moment of reckoning for the transgressions and emptiness in their own lives. However, as Yeo-jin perseveres in her humiliating, delusive obsession with self-atonement, the toll becomes even more unbearable for her doting father, a widowed police detective named Yeong-ki (Eol Lee) who, already grieving from the senseless death of his wife (a still unsolved, ongoing police investigation), becomes an inadvertent witness to his only child’s unfathomable descent into prostitution: a discovery that ironically occurs as he investigates the crime scene of a violently murdered young woman – most likely, another under-aged prostitute – in an opposite room of a similarly decorated love motel. Consumed by a sense of impotence over his daughter’s debasement and corruption, he begins to follow Yeo-jin as she conducts her bizarre, invariable after-school routine.
Consisting of three chapters, “Vasumitra”, “Samaria” and “Sonata”, and exploring such spiritually fundamental themes as sin, moral bankruptcy and atonement, the film suggests a cursory – but fitting – modern-day parallel to the tripartite structure and redemptive themes of Dante Alighieri’s epic narrative poem, The Divine Comedy. Set in the alienating urban landscape of contemporary Seoul (although its human desolation could be typical of any despiritualised, materialistic society), The Samaritan Girl is a figurative descent into the soulless, impersonal spaces of anonymous Internet chat rooms, tawdry love motels, and secluded public parks (which seem to be populated more by statues than by real people). These are the spaces that Jae-yeong inhabits in a misguided quest for connection and material gain, and that Yeo-jin must later traverse in order to expiate her own feelings of culpability. Moreover, the film is also a chronicle of spiritual dilemma, intrinsic to the sentiment of wishing to bear another person’s burden (and more broadly, of Catholic guilt) that motivates the actions of both the prodigal daughter, Yeo-jin, and, subsequently, her father Yeong-ki. It is this figurative Christ-like cross-bearing for the perceived sins of others that is illustrated in the indelible image of Yeo-jin carrying a critically injured, partially clothed Jae-yeong on piggyback through the crowded city streets to seek medical assistance at a nearby hospital (a martyr image that recalls a foreshadowing shot of a Sacred Heart picture displayed on Yeo-jin’s dresser mantle).
The title of the concluding chapter, “Sonata”, provides a further useful insight into the thematic structure of the film. Alluding through this title to the contrasting movements within a single musical composition, the film is also an illustration of contrasting reactions to similar transgressions. The recurring images of cleansing between Jae-yeong and Yeo-jin are intimate, supportive, and even purgative. In contrast, the image of Yeo-jin’s shower after leaving the hospital – later recalled in a similar shot of Yeong-ki – is devastating, isolated and bereft. In essence, while Yeo-jin and Yeong-ki can see past the failings and imperfections of others, they cannot forgive themselves. Inasmuch as Yeo-jin serves as a passive and enabling protector of Jae-yeong in her seemingly voluntary exploitation, Yeong-ki’s responsibility as his daughter’s guardian and omnipresent watcher becomes more complex and inescapable. Resorting to dispensing small doses of anecdotal parable and recounting cryptic, Fatima-like visions of apocalypse to a preoccupied Yeo-jin as he drives her to school, Yeong-ki does not confront his daughter with his shattering discovery; instead, he turns his grief inward and begins to confront his daughter’s “dates” after their encounters with her. Casting the proverbial first stone onto the car windows of a married businessman (whose daughter is later revealed to be older than Yeo-jin) in a secluded field, Yeong-ki’s innately protective paternal role turns from brooding sentinel to avenging angel.
In the final shot of Samaritan Girl: the errant sight of a wobbling, out of control car struggling to chase a sports utility vehicle through a flooded gravel road in the rural countryside, doggedly navigating the inhospitable terrain using an innate compass that elusively, but transfixedly, points home.
, Samaritan Girl was not a box office success in its home country, but was better received overseas. In the film's first large scale showing it won the Silver Bear, the second place award at the Berlin International Film Festival
in 2004. After this, it became a sought after film for other international film festivals.
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n film written and directed by Kim Ki-duk
Kim Ki-duk
Kim Ki-duk is a South Korean filmmaker noted for his idiosyncratic "art-house" cinematic works. His films have received many distinctions in the festival circuit. He is not related to the Kim Ki-duk who directed Yonggary in the 1960s...
.
Synopsis
Yeo-jin and Jae-yeong are two teenage girls who are trying to earn money for a trip to EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. To reach this end, Jae-yeong is prostituting
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
herself while Yeo-jin acts as her pimp, setting her up with the clients and staying on guard for the police. Things take a turn for the worse when Yeo-jin gets distracted from her duty and the police raid the motel where Jae-yeong is meeting with a client. To avoid getting caught, Jae-yeong jumps out of a window, fatally injuring herself.
After Jae-yeong's death, Yeo-jin blames herself and to ease her own conscience, sets to return all of the money they earned to the clients while sleeping with them herself. Eventually Yeo-jin's father, a policeman, is devastated when he discovers what she is doing. He starts following her discreetly and confronts her clients with increasingly violent results. Finally, he ends up brutally killing a client.
For the rest of its duration, the movie follows the father and daughter on a short trip to the countryside, where they both sense something is wrong with the other, but are unable to confront each other directly. In the end, the law catches up with the father, who hopes to have done enough to prepare Yeo-jin for her life without him.
Plot
In an early episode of Kim Ki-duk’s Samaritan Girl (2004), the adolescent Jae-yeong (Min-jeong Seo) tells her classmate and best friend Yeo-jin (Ji-min Kwak) the tale of an Indian prostitute named Vasumitra whose clients, as the curious legend goes, became devout Buddhists after their sexual encounter with her. It is an innocuous topic of conversation that takes on an inherently disagreeable tone within the context of their troubling activity, as the demure Yeo-jin helps the more uninhibited Jae-yeong apply make-up in preparation for a rendezvous with an older client, a transactional “date” arranged by Yeo-jin on her friend’s behalf (albeit using her own name) through an online chat. The fanciful Jae-yeong interprets the anecdotal spiritual awakening as a testament to Vasumitra’s feminine prowess, and it is this naive belief in sexuality’s nurturing, revelatory potential that seems to embolden Jae-yeong into following through with their sordid enterprise. Determined to reach their superficial goal of earning enough money to be able to travel to Europe, and seemingly obsessed with the mythical prostitute’s powers of transfiguration, Jae-yeong exhibits a fearlessness (or perhaps, wanton disregard) of consequence that, one afternoon, in the presence of her trusted lookout Yeo-jin, will lead to an irrational and tragic leap of faith.The recurring theme of transcendence through a transformative encounter defines the course of the film, as Yeo-jin attempts to come to terms with her complicity in Jae-yeong’s incomprehensible act by retracing her friend’s liaisons through a meticulously kept personal diary that had also served as an account of their financial progress towards their hoped-for European trip. Contacting each client under the familiar pretence of shared intimate history, Yeo-jin embarks on a guilt-ridden journey of sexual and financial restitution: arranging to reunite with each of Jae-yeong’s “dates”, consummating their transaction, revealing the plight of the “first” Yeo-jin, then concluding their meeting by returning the money once given to her friend by them. Her unexpectedly sincere, obliquely Samaritan act proves cathartic to the thoughtless, exploitative clients, turning their seemingly inconsequential dalliance with the under-aged prostitute into a humbling moment of reckoning for the transgressions and emptiness in their own lives. However, as Yeo-jin perseveres in her humiliating, delusive obsession with self-atonement, the toll becomes even more unbearable for her doting father, a widowed police detective named Yeong-ki (Eol Lee) who, already grieving from the senseless death of his wife (a still unsolved, ongoing police investigation), becomes an inadvertent witness to his only child’s unfathomable descent into prostitution: a discovery that ironically occurs as he investigates the crime scene of a violently murdered young woman – most likely, another under-aged prostitute – in an opposite room of a similarly decorated love motel. Consumed by a sense of impotence over his daughter’s debasement and corruption, he begins to follow Yeo-jin as she conducts her bizarre, invariable after-school routine.
Consisting of three chapters, “Vasumitra”, “Samaria” and “Sonata”, and exploring such spiritually fundamental themes as sin, moral bankruptcy and atonement, the film suggests a cursory – but fitting – modern-day parallel to the tripartite structure and redemptive themes of Dante Alighieri’s epic narrative poem, The Divine Comedy. Set in the alienating urban landscape of contemporary Seoul (although its human desolation could be typical of any despiritualised, materialistic society), The Samaritan Girl is a figurative descent into the soulless, impersonal spaces of anonymous Internet chat rooms, tawdry love motels, and secluded public parks (which seem to be populated more by statues than by real people). These are the spaces that Jae-yeong inhabits in a misguided quest for connection and material gain, and that Yeo-jin must later traverse in order to expiate her own feelings of culpability. Moreover, the film is also a chronicle of spiritual dilemma, intrinsic to the sentiment of wishing to bear another person’s burden (and more broadly, of Catholic guilt) that motivates the actions of both the prodigal daughter, Yeo-jin, and, subsequently, her father Yeong-ki. It is this figurative Christ-like cross-bearing for the perceived sins of others that is illustrated in the indelible image of Yeo-jin carrying a critically injured, partially clothed Jae-yeong on piggyback through the crowded city streets to seek medical assistance at a nearby hospital (a martyr image that recalls a foreshadowing shot of a Sacred Heart picture displayed on Yeo-jin’s dresser mantle).
The title of the concluding chapter, “Sonata”, provides a further useful insight into the thematic structure of the film. Alluding through this title to the contrasting movements within a single musical composition, the film is also an illustration of contrasting reactions to similar transgressions. The recurring images of cleansing between Jae-yeong and Yeo-jin are intimate, supportive, and even purgative. In contrast, the image of Yeo-jin’s shower after leaving the hospital – later recalled in a similar shot of Yeong-ki – is devastating, isolated and bereft. In essence, while Yeo-jin and Yeong-ki can see past the failings and imperfections of others, they cannot forgive themselves. Inasmuch as Yeo-jin serves as a passive and enabling protector of Jae-yeong in her seemingly voluntary exploitation, Yeong-ki’s responsibility as his daughter’s guardian and omnipresent watcher becomes more complex and inescapable. Resorting to dispensing small doses of anecdotal parable and recounting cryptic, Fatima-like visions of apocalypse to a preoccupied Yeo-jin as he drives her to school, Yeong-ki does not confront his daughter with his shattering discovery; instead, he turns his grief inward and begins to confront his daughter’s “dates” after their encounters with her. Casting the proverbial first stone onto the car windows of a married businessman (whose daughter is later revealed to be older than Yeo-jin) in a secluded field, Yeong-ki’s innately protective paternal role turns from brooding sentinel to avenging angel.
In the final shot of Samaritan Girl: the errant sight of a wobbling, out of control car struggling to chase a sports utility vehicle through a flooded gravel road in the rural countryside, doggedly navigating the inhospitable terrain using an innate compass that elusively, but transfixedly, points home.
Reception
As with many other films by Kim Ki-dukKim Ki-duk
Kim Ki-duk is a South Korean filmmaker noted for his idiosyncratic "art-house" cinematic works. His films have received many distinctions in the festival circuit. He is not related to the Kim Ki-duk who directed Yonggary in the 1960s...
, Samaritan Girl was not a box office success in its home country, but was better received overseas. In the film's first large scale showing it won the Silver Bear, the second place award at the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
in 2004. After this, it became a sought after film for other international film festivals.
Main cast
- Kwak Ji-minKwak Ji-minKwak Ji-min is a South Korean actress.- Filmography :* Girl X Girl * I Am Sam * Redeye * Shiroi Karasu * Samaritan Girl...
- Yeo-jin - Lee Eol - Yeong-ki (Yeo-jin's father)
- Han Yeo-reumHan Yeo-reumHan Yeo-reum is a South Korean actress. She is perhaps most notable for her roles on two films by Kim Ki-duk: Samaritan Girl and The Bow.- Filmography :*Samaritan Girl *Jeni, Juno...
- Jae-yeong (as Seo Min-jeong)