A sweet-faced girl, perhaps a little distracted, a little indifferent, applies lip gloss. Behind this innocent gesture hides a vortex ready to suck in various victims. When Se-young gets told off by Yi-seon, her boss, for having presented unacceptable work, the girl’s face remains impassible. But the affront turns a punishment into a challenge: she has to redo everything by 8pm. Otherwise one of her fingers will be amputated. If, on the other hand, she manages, the girl suggests that the same punishment be meted out to her boss. The day passes, with the girl’s colleagues gossiping about her disconcerted expression, how she is becoming more and more unsettled by the minute. She knows her colleagues’ hidden secrets, she savagely self-harms and manipulates people with her smooth talk. And the time passes, the end of the day looms. How will this brutal bet end?
Yi-seon begins to investigate: she needs to know more about this girl. “Don’t believe a word she says,” warns her a few days later an old school friend. A warning that sends a chill through the spectator, too. As Se-young’s real self begins to be revealed, the veil of the Mayas, which the story has built up to deceive the other characters and the public, begins to fall. As Se-young’s diabolical nature (who or what is she? Is she possessed or is she a witch?) begins to emerge, the glow of superstition begins to grip the spectator.
Yoo Young-sun, making his feature film debut, adopts a dark tone, but one oozing wicked black humour for his movie, making the spectator initially feel empathy towards Se-young, despite her devious moves. She just appears to be a loveable bitch. But morbidity and apprehension soon replace irony, and the character begins to show its real colours, leaving the viewer with a sense of uneasiness for having rooted for this ‘monster’. A mechanism that is repeated when we discover the dramatic past of Se-young and the origin of her need for love. Here too, the viewer feels a sense of shame and regret for having, even for an instant, felt sorry for her. And in the middle of these scenarios constructed and deconstructed ad hoc, the truth comes out, a truth made up of cruel violence and wickedness that seems to stem from nothing but the sheep pleasure of it. A distorted philosophy of pain, a path trodden by the protagonist with cynicism and mathematical precision, leaving nothing to chance, every move, every word calculated. The finale of the film takes a step back to allow us to see it from a distance, and we realise that every move had an evil goal, a truth to be dissimulated. It is no coincidence that the director Yoo Young-sun often fools us by showing images that then turn out to be reflected in a mirror, almost a visual declaration of intent, of illusions. A strategy that is perhaps hackneyed, but forgivable in a debut of this status.
If Se-young manages to get under our skin, it is no small thanks to the performance by Park Ju-hee, who manages to portray the full complexity of the character, ranging from innocence to pure evil with a spine-chilling naturalism. Her impenetrable, almost indifferent face only needs to hint at a smile for the blood in our veins to freeze. In this day and age, it is not easy to create a monster that manages to be transported from the big screen into our worst nightmares, but Se-young is certainly a candidate for this honour.
Luca Censabella