Yeah, the big question(s): Who is the guy on the phone who sent him the roll of film and tipped him off about his girlfriend? And Who clubbed him in the face?
@plsletitrain is right: "He can see himself from afar, yes, but to actually lay hand on his person is another story". And I am also suspicious of the cop, not sure why. Another thing that goes flippy floppy about Min watching himself is that at one point he is watching himself, and the watching persona isn't bandaged up. But at the end the bandaged up version is watching.
I never saw the old guy give Kang a key. I read that in some other review, too. When does that happen? Are we talking about the old guy in the hospital who "lost a slipper" and points at Kang to the nurse? Or the old school teacher guy? And,
@plsletitrain, by the "little girl in the end" do you mean the youngster who "lost a slipper" and points at Kang to the nurse? I thought that was a boy, but who knows. The scene is cut to imply it is Min turning around to look at Su-in.
I watched this again after posting the initial blurb here. After my first re-watch I was a little underwhelmed, I think because I was watching it casually. And then the questions started to mount, so I went back and watched it again--BUT--I started somewhere in the middle, about where he is approaching the cabin after getting the tip from the mysterious guy and following his GF to the cabin. Then I went back to the beginning and watched it up to that point.
I think there might be a magic spot in the story, somewhere in the middle, that if you start there and loop around it proceeds differently ... because you have a different set of facts to go on.
So the whole thing can't/doesn't make sense (in some form of what "making sense" means). But just to make sure I'm on the right track ... do we agree that this is more or less the "timeline":
- As a kid, Kang Min transfers to a school where Min Su-in is (notice the "Min" business--I"m assuming Jung Suh as Su-in is/was that little girl, and that she is actually dead the whole time we are watching her--but this gets into the whole problem of why he doesn't recognize her name, or the fact that Su-in looks like Eun-Ah) .
- The two of them witness the killing (which never happened according to the teacher guy)
- Su-in floats into space to haunt the forest and Min leaves town and loses all his memory of the situation.
- Min hangs with Eu-in who dies in a plane crash
- Min hangs with Hwang Soo-Young
- Min kills Hwang Soo-Young and the Boss guy
Here's where we have to start making stuff up, I think:
- After Min does the killing, he somehow gets knocked out in the woods
- He wakes up in the woods and stumbles into the tunnel and gets hit by a car and dies
Why the big show of the watch at 4:00? I assume, but didn't see, that when he dies (not) on the operating table they would pronounce him dead at 4:00, but I didn't see that. (I read somewhere that the director intentionally removed scenes that would have "explained" things).
Now I get really confused:
When is Min hanging out with Su-in? I assumed she was his "guiding light" for the fourteen days he was in a coma, leading him to understand what he had done and that he had died. But But But, he's with her before he does the killings. And he's not bandaged up. I know there's an explanation for this but it's the part that befuddles me.
Maybe there's not supposed to be a "timeline". Beyond that, the two big metaphors of the film are pretty cool: People who die unloved become spider spirits until someone remembers them; Spider Forest is the tangled web of memories we navigate to define reality. Am I right about that?
Here's a tiny little point that either demonstrates the film's continuity is messed up or that we need to reassess what continuity means to us:
There's the super cute kitchen scene with Min and Eu-in. Min tells Eu-in of the plane crash dream. Eu-in says it's not a dream (btw--this is the best scene that demonstrates the Mixing of memories and flashbacks, or something). Eu-in is already dead at that point, in real time and
in that scene. She tells him it's not a dream, and she also talks about how she hates to see him giving up on life after she died in the plane crash. Eu-in exits the kitchen and fades into darkness. Great shot!
Anyway, Eu-in exits into darkness. Cut to a head shot of Min who lets out a heavy sigh. But it's not of him in the kitchen. His location is undisclosed and unknown at this point (but I bet most people just take it like it's him in the kitchen. It's not). He's not heavy sighing because Eu-in just walked out of the room. He's heavy sighing because he's drunk and given up on life just as Eu-in described. So the source of the flashback has changed. The kitchen scene flashback started when a bandaged Min holds up the ice cream cones photo of Eu-in to the one hanging on his wall, as if to signal he's starting, trying to get his memories back (this is right after his first 'escape' from the hospital, after the surgeon gave him the picture of Eu-in).
But after Eu-in exits into darkness, the scene is cut to heavy sighing Min
, of him after he leaves the Karoake bar scene where Soo-Young approached him. He leaves and sits down outside. That's where kitchen scene cut to, so it becomes the source of the flashback memory. This is really trippy, I know! He's sitting there
after the club scene which
comes next. Twilight Zone. Soo-Young approaches him and they start their thing. Min is getting on with his life as Eu-in wanted in the memory he had sitting there after the club scene, which is the same memory he's having after he escapes the hospital for the first time. It's a weird circle.
And btw - that ski lift scene. I get that that is the shortcut to Spider Forest but it seemed so random. And it made me a little queasy.
Spider Forest (Geomi sup) [2004] • South Korea
