One of the surprise hits with foreign crix at the Pusan fest, The Quiet Familyis a sly, genuinely anarchic comedy of escalating absurdity about an "average" Korean family. Credited locally with reviving the dormant horror genre in Korean cinema, it's actually more like a modern-day slice of Grand Guignol.
Seen through the eyes of 17-yer-old daughter Mi-na (Go Ho-kyung), story centers on the Kang family, who sink their savings into an isolated cottage in the hills that they name Misty Lodge, and nervously await their first guest. When he turns to be a weird hobo and is found dead the next morning of apparent suicide, the father (Park In-hwan) decides they must bury the corpse if business is to continue. Unfortunately, their next customers are a young couple who commit double suicide after a night of passionate lovemaking, so they're soon pushing up dasies, too.
Thereafter, things go from bad to worse.Casting some of the roles against type, and playing the whole thing as a perfectly normal episode in the life of an economically strapped family (though script was written prior to the Asian meltdown), former legit
writer-director Kim Jee-woon draws wonderful ensemble playing from his cast. Pic doesn't labor its multitude of subtexts - the sanctity of family solidarity, the capacity for sudden violence in buttoned-up Korean society - even though, in the movie's creepy final shot, the audience is left in no doubt that this isn't just a straightforward comedy.
Derek Elley