Park Chan-wook’s The Thirst is definitely a dark love
story. Chan-wook is a Korean art house director, the creator of the famous
"Vengeance” trilogy. His new Cannes
Film Festival nominated movie is a bit mystical, a bit violent, a bit romantic
and of course greatly profound.
The Thirst is a picture about a monk who accidentally
becomes a vampire. His positive credo prevents him from killing people. Once he
meets a girl, who seems to be the love of all his life. Gradually she realizes
that the monk is a vampire, and she is looking forward to becoming one as well.
But she turns to be a violent creature with the eternal thirst for human’s
blood. Two juxtaposing characters are struggling during the whole picture, and
in the end the monk has to kill both of them because his love can’t stop
killing people. Love is a tragedy again, as it has always been in art though.
This picture can’t be compared with Twilight Saga, as this
one is much more profound, and the aims the director follows are certainly
different. I should also admit the stylization of the picture: black, white and
bloody red colors prevail. Nonetheless The Thirst may seem an independent movie,
this picture is interesting to watch.
The Thirst got the Jury Award at 2009 Cannes Film
Festival.
Max, I have read your post several times and I am in two minds. To watch or not to watch. There is something in the movie theme that I seem to be afraid of. The phrase "Love is a tragedy" is what makes me sick and depressed. At the same time, there is a lot of truth in it. Before I decide to watch, I would like to know whether the final moral is positive and thruthful. Why did you watch it? Would you like to watch it again?
To be honest, I'm sick with all this vampire theme, especially after watching The Twilight. I'm not pointing that this film is quite the same as its predecessors, and - no way! - I'm not comparing it with Twilight saga, but the theme itself is rather barren for me now.
The vampiric love theme becomes more and more popular. Are we bored with human love in the cinema? Do you want to fall in love with a mystical creature?
It seems to me that people are fed up not only with human love, but with all other human feelings... just remember the latest movies: most of them are about aliens, monsters, robots, zombies and other stuff like that. May be, people are bored with their human beeing, may be, they try to find something new, thinking that the theme of HUMAN relationships is exhausted, or, may be... Well, there can be many explanations...
Yep, completely agree. People can't imagine modern movie without any computer animation and breathtaking effects, so nowadays they (people) judge about the value of the movie according to its budget... Quite a pitiful situation.
