Judgment (S)

Park Chan-wook draws on a tragic event who took place in South Korea to ironically criticize the greed of rampant capitalism. In 1995, in Seoul, a huge shopping centre, the Sampung department stores collapsed, killing 500 people and injuring many others. This tragedy was caused by an earthquake and by human negligence. Half a million dollars were offered in indemnity to the victims’ relatives, and this triggered a merciless looting made by venal and unscrupulous people. We are projected by Park into a morgue where lies the lifeless body of a girl waiting to be identified. A man and a woman, who introduce themselves as the parents of the victim, have no doubts and show off their desperation for the loss of the young girl. However, after a moment’s hesitation, a morgue employee claims the body of the girl. The grotesque controversy about who is the real “owner” of the corpse and the legitimate beneficiary of the money starts here. Between turn of events and paradoxical punishments of fate, the ending leads to a tragic and ironical conclusion. Framed in limpid black and white, the whole story is set in the cold aseptic morgue, where the characters’ absurd and pathetic dialogues take place, like a journalist and a police detective who keep on squabbling. Halfway between Hitchcock and Polansky, Judgement reveals all Park’s irony about a shabby, ignorant and greedy humanity, who doesn’t hesitate to come to vile compromises for money. It’s slightly didactic and moralistic, but it’s a very well-made movie as far as the direction is concerned.