“What’s indecent to you anyway?”, the seasoned policeman Jang-bae asks his young subordinate officer — after the chief of police orders, in the context of a moral offensive, to rid Seoul of all things “indecent”. Good question! So good that it is the basis for Lee Hae-young’s entire pleasant erotic comedy Foxy Festival.
With intelligence and humour the film illustrates two truisms which are indeed less than moral: “It takes all sorts to make a world” and “Everything revolves around sex.” The teacher Mr. Kim wears female lingerie when his wife is absent. Soon-sim, a dignified and attractive widow, ever since setting eyes on a whip hanging in the mechanic Ki-bong’s shop, cannot think of anything else. He introduces her to the mysteries of S&M, but the pupil surpasses her teacher and becomes the Dominatrix of his dreams.
The student Ja-hye, daughter of Soon-sim and unaware of her mother’s passions, makes money by selling her knickers, which she dampens by running in them. She wants to lose her virginity with the fish sausage seller Sang-doo, who rejects her — also because, as we will see, he has a perversion of his own. The policeman Jang-bae is no exception: he’s convinced he is the Korean John C. Holmes, much to the disdain of his teacher girlfriend who cannot stand his boorish ways — until in the toilet he happens to see his subordinate officer’s sexual apparatus and he compares it to his, after which he loses all of his confidence.
This little Ronde of perversion obtains the remarkable result of being very funny while allowing the characters to maintain a human dimension. With its humorous over-the-topness Foxy Festival talks to each of us: it’s a film about our sexual fantasies — and about the fact that these don’t always coincide with those of our loved ones. Also because they are secret: a symbolically relevant scene shows Professor Kim and Soon-sim in her role of mother, in a serious meeting during office hours at the school about Ja-hye’s strange behaviour (she seems to have become obsessed with running) — and the tell-tale camera reveals Soon-sim’s S&M stilettoes and the women’s knickers whose edging is peeping out of the professor’s trousers. Inevitably the S&M couple Soon-sim and Ki-bong are the central part of the film, with their fabrication of delirious erotic machines that are very reminiscent of Jan Švankmajer’s feature-length masterpiece Conspirators of Pleasure.
Outrageously funny, the film is packed with double entendres both in a visual and verbal sense and with editing connections through analogy. Frequently an image appears in order to represent thoughts or memories, with a freedom similar to that of comics (which existed in silent films, and which is now reappearing on the screen). The sophisticated directing by Lee Hae-young, author alongside Lee Hae-jun of the splendid Like a Virgin (2006), is capable of great flashy moments (the hilarious martial art film style split-screen in the park fight scene) but also of more subdued touches (the light of the stairwell in the block of flats that automatically switches off during the showdown between Professor Kim and his wife). In tune with Nam Na-young’s editing, the direction creates a great work of connection through the use of lighting, openings and glances.
The film provides meaty roles for a group of actors in a state of grace. Soon-sim is played with deadpan humour by Shim Hye-jin, a brilliant actress who was particularly active in the 90s (and returns after Mothers and Daughters, 2008). Her partner Ki-bong is Seong Dong-il, an excellent supporting actor (200 Pounds Beauty). Jang-bae is the great Shin Ha-kyun, protagonist of No Mercy for the Rude, the winner at FEFF 2007. Finally, the role of the reluctant Sang-doo is played by Ryoo Seung-beom, who will be a guest at Udine FEFF 13 as co-protagonist in The Unjust.
In the end, Foxy Festival is a humanist film. “What the heck you know?”, shouts Soon-sim at her daughter who ignores her, in their final confrontation: what do we know that allows us to judge others? So our hearts follow her in her funny, solemn, memorable final march, which leads to a great moment of collective freedom. Perverts of the world, unite!
Giorgio Placereani