The fixed image of a close-circuit TV which uninterruptedly records everything. A shot which evokes the idea of control. This is the first shot of Moby Dick.
1994: South Korea has just completed its process of democratization and is looking for a new balance, and clandestine forces aim at destabilizing the country. Both population and institutions are shaken because of minor terroristic attacks like a car bomb on a bridge: a demonstration with no casualties, apart the terrorists themselves. Lee Bang-woo (Hwang Jeong-min, The Unjust), a young and stubborn reporter hunting for a scoop to be the turning point in his carrier, dives headfirst into it. He creates a small task force composed by the up-and-coming actor Son Jin-gi (the great character actor Sang-ho) and the IT expert Seong Hyo-gwan (Kim Min-hee, Actresses) to carry out a field investigation and decode the encrypted files which Yun Hyeok (Jin Goo, Mother), the mysterious friend of the leading character, gave her. Yun Hyeok abandoned the secret organization for which he worked as an undercover agent and now he is hunted by its members. The trio starts the investigation on the facts and they increasingly penetrate into what gradually seems to be a conspiracy. The organization for which Yun Hyeok was working is powerful, all-pervading and cruel and the journalists often face a wall of silence. However, the team spirit among the three becomes stronger and it infuses courage into them to continue despite the uneven struggle and the bad blows.
In Melville’s masterpiece, from which the movie takes its title, an obsession drives captain Achab: in the movie by Park In-jae, the driving force of the story is the pathological need of Bang-Woo to find a scoop proving to himself and anybody else that he is a valuable reporter. In the movie, the fierce whale becomes an anonymous and ubiquitous organization which influences the core of the system, the police and the mass-media, thereby turning to be an invisible colossus. The literary recall visually takes shape through two shorts but incisive dream sequences in which the leading character is dreaming of fluctuating in the ocean close to a gigantic whale. However, the reference to Melville’s novel is just a homage, nearly a pretext since the writer explores the depths of human psyche, Park In-jae decides to follow another path, namely a simple and linear story aiming at entertaining. Instead of insisting on both the anguish and paranoia of the leading characters and their suffering for such situation, the movie dwells on investigations and the reaction of journalists to overcome their impotence. The scenes are mostly set in makeshift offices or within the editorial staff, all places which remind the tradition of report cinema. The characters are not famous reporters but their stubbornness is a weapon which brings them close to the audience who supports David rather than the commanding Goliath; they could remind us Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in All the President’s Men but with the difference that the two US stars had more aplomb and certainly they did not need to climb the stairs in great haste to flee from the chasers.
Park In-jae is very careful in directing, he has a fairly classic taste for shots which make the story fluent; when he decides to dare, he shows a certain austerity which does not make his style mawkish. And this is confirmed by the description of the peculiar historical setting: a period which witnesses a young democracy in South Korea, but the first signs of the terrible 1997 financial crisis are there. This historical setting becomes important at the end of the story and the effort to reproduce those years not only through costumes and scenery, but also through their atmosphere is praiseworthy. However, refrain from daring can be limiting and the movie has some limits, but Park In-jae is a neophyte, thus he can be forgiven. He knows some special effects, as for example choosing long shots from above which evoke the feeling of being spied. In this way, we are at the same level of the character who is spied but at the same time – being the audience – we are spies, too.
Luca Censabella