Scene Analysis Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Adrian Bravo Scene Analysis: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance FIL 3006 January 2, 2013

Adrian Bravo PID FIL 3006 April 16th 2013 Scene Analysis: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance Geum-ja is a woman who has found herself pregnant and alone. She seeks a home with the only person she can think of, a teacher from her school that once told her how “sexy” she was. Not surprisingly enough this bit of attention was enough to woe Geum-ja into the arms of Mr. Baek. He is a teacher and professional kidnapper who kidnaps the children of rich parents from other classrooms to make money off of the ransoms. Geum-ja is convinced into helping Mr. Baek in the kidnappings, she sees them as innocent, no one getting hurt, and the bond between the children and the parent’s growing stronger. But after a year of helping Mr. Baek, he decides to force Geum-ja into taking the fall for the murder of one of the children. It was an accident, the kid just wouldn’t stop crying, but to make sure that Geum-ja does take the fall he kidnaps her daughter and tells her that in order to save the life of her child, she must take the fall. Mr. Baek puts Geum-ja’s daughter into foster care and during the 13 years of Geum-ja being imprisoned she makes sure to be the most kind hearted, giving, and obedient prisoner. She is looked upon as an angel, making the lives of all the inmates a bit more comfortable. However, it is to make sure the plan that she has in place has enough backing to actually happen. She lies about her faith, pretending to be a very faithful Christian, gaining the trust of a priest who pushes to have her sentence reduced. Even though Geum-ja is acting when it comes to the greatness of her faith, she is still convinced that she is a sinner and that she is to seek atonement for what she has put her daughter in. She asks for forgiveness and teaches her daughter that every time she sins, she is to find a

way to atone for that sin. When she is released from prison and given tofu to eat, a symbol of her cleansing, she drops it to the floor. She believes that before she can cleanse herself, she needs to cleanse herself of the vengeance she seeks. Sin and forgiveness play a great role throughout the movie and when she finally gets close to erasing the one thing holding her back from changing her life, the death of Mr. Baek, she makes a realization that changes her entire reasoning behind kidnapping Mr. Baek. The rising action and turning point in the movie comes that very moment when she decides that she is no longer going to have her vengeance against Mr. Baek and is instead going to give that opportunity to the parents of all the victims. In this scene there is very little dialogue, Geum-ja was to execute Mr. Baek the way she dreamed, like a dog, with no change to say a thing to save his life. Even as she struggles to pull the trigger it is that single phone alarm that snaps Geum-ja out of her plan and changes the reason behind kidnapping Mr. Baek.

Geum-ja after 13 and a half years of prison time, and the same amount of time planning a way to reach her goal of vengeance, is moments away from the end. The use of an extreme long shot draws focus to the decrepit school that has been chosen as the final scene for Mr. Baek, his hunting ground, will now become his resting place.

A cut to a close up of Geum-ja, her stare cold, emotionless. High key lighting used to fill in most shadows of her face, to fill light used to give it that slight glow that she is known to radiate being the “angel” of the prison, the beautiful, innocent woman that should have had no power to kill.

Extreme close-up of Mr. Baek’s eyes, staring with one eyes at the bringer of his death, with the other at the object that is to fulfill it. A narrow depth of field is used to highlight his one eyes, as his muffled cries pick up volume with each and every second that Geum-ja hesitates to pull the trigger.

As she removes the gun from his eye we get an extreme close up of Geum-ja’s eye, as it fills with tears, the lighting soft, the depth of field miniscule as it blurs everything but her eye and the tears that form on it. She is not hesitating to prolong his suffering, she is hesitating because something holds her back from killing the man that imprisoned her and kept her away from her daughter for so many years.

As the camera cuts to another close up of her face the low key lighting begins to change, slight shadows are now noticeable on her face, her eyes red with tears, she now struggles with carrying out her vengeance. No longer is the look unemotional, she is not fighting within herself.

A long shot of Geum-ja and Mr. Baek emphasizes this struggle as Geum-ja towers over his weak, tied up form, a backdrop of blood red drapes, symbolizing the killing floor, the composition off balance creating tension on top of the suspense that is forming as Geum-ja struggles with pulling the trigger and Mr. Baek crying out and breathing muffled sighs of relief each time the gun is lowered. She goes from a powerful figure to a defeated one each time she fails to pull the trigger. The lighting is even throughout the long shot, creating a play like scene.

She pushes herself to try once more. An extreme close up on her eyes as a the use of low key lighting stops being implemented, no longer are her features soft. The shadows of her furrowed brow take away from her once beautiful image. The tense look on her face is emphasized as she continues to stare into that lone blank eye of Mr. Baek.

Cut to an extreme close up of Mr. Baek’s eye as it stares blankly at Geum-ja, the same type of lighting used on him, his eye almost appearing surreal and detached from a human, there is no fear. It is taking pleasure away from his killing.

A quick cut breaks the 180 degree rule showing high key lighting on her other side, a close up of just her eye, matching the gaze of Mr. Baek’s lone eye, once again with a small depth of field,

and her eye covered in shadow. She is split in two, wanting vengeance, yet not getting the same pleasure her day dreams brought her.

Another quick cut that jumps the 180 degree line to show her face again before a phone alarm rings on screen. This is the first bit of diegetic sound that has come from the scene apart from Mr. Baek’s grunts. She reaches into his pocket to reveal the source of the noise.

An extreme close-up comes onto the very important and story altering object, the marble of Won-Mo, the child whose death led to Geum-ja’s arrest. The depth of field minuscule for it is the only thing of importance on screen. It is the item Geum-ja could not describe to the detective which lead to his doubts and lead to the realization that Geum-ja was taking the fall for Mr. Baek and the safety of her child from that psychopath.

A close-up of Mr. Baek’s face with washed out shadows, emphasizes his tired eyes, his aging. He knows the conclusion that Geum-ja is about to come to and who this “kidnapper” really is.

He averts his eyes from the realizing gaze of our protagonist, who is struck with these trinkets of children passed.

A close up on Geum-Ja with low key lighting on her face, her worrying gaze, her confusion, a look of betrayal washes over her.

An extreme close up as she rips the marble, the object that signified the moment her entire life changed, from the rest of the trinkets.

The camera cuts to the back of Mr. Baek’s head as Geum-ja, without a single word, forces him to stare at the objects of pain and suffering hanging casually on his cell phone.

He does not look at them even as the camera dolly’s to his front. He simply looks up at Geum-ja, ignoring the item and asking about her makeup.

The emotion once again is gone from her eyes, the lighting washing away her shadows, her face stern once more.

He averts his eyes away from her stare. The high key lighting continues to give shadow to the evil person that has just been found out to have a great pleasure in his killings. His excuse that it was simply to make good money off of the rich children’s parents and to even help their relationship get stronger by growing the longing that the parents have for their kids.

Geum-ja’s jacket covers the smirk on Mr. Baek’s face, the split personality that he embodies. Acting as a loving individual and hiding all the real suffering he has caused. He never cared for Geum-ja, only using her as a scape goat to all the missing children from Mr. Baek’s school.

Geum-ja slams Mr. Baek to the floor and an extreme long shot follows showing the entire room in focus, the two of them in focus, her figure overpowering Mr. Baek. Her anger is escaping as she finds out the reason behind everything that Mr. Baek has ever done and said why he felt it necessary to threaten Geum-ja with the life of her child. He was a serial killer and she was what he was looking for to finally get the heat off of him.

As she chokes Mr. Baek we have a close up on her face, reminiscent of the fire in her eyes as she reenacted the death of Won-Mo, the same anger in her eyes that she had as she found herself trapped between telling the truth and letting he little girl be killed.

She walks over and opens the blind and allowing for a flooding of light to illuminate the situation, her figure in a medium shot. Her profile is a silhouette in the bright window, a low fill light makes sure to keep her slightly illuminated to the side that faces the camera.

We cut to a stare down between the two, both of them silhouetted in the bright back light, in very high key lighting as the shadows are very prominent. When he opens his mouth to explain himself but it is of no importance to Geum-ja or the storyline of the movie.

We cut to an overhead shot of Mr. Baek about to get incapacitated. Even as he fills most of the screen he seems weak in comparison to what is about to occur. His size makes no difference to the framing because he is in fact an unimportant figure now, someone who needs to be taken out from the world.

As Geum-ja kneels before Mr. Baek, a position of weakness, she still appears much more powerful than him as the blood pools from his wounded foot. Her position makes her appear childlike and is a flashback to the first moment they meet, with Geum-ja looking up at the wet naked body of Mr. Baek.

She goes into the hall finally coming to her decision, to contact the investigator from 13 years back and solving the mystery of the many missing children. She decides not to allow herself the vengeance she sought for many years. Instead she has decided to allow for the families of the victims to bring about the vengeance they deserve.

We cut to officers digging for the remains of the missing children, finding yet another body in the snow.

A fragmented shot shows the hand of a person holding that missing marble, a glimpse to the end of the film, and the final dinner the entire group of parents share after their vengeance, and as they decide to never speak to one another again.

As she speaks to the detective who has continued to uncover bodies in the forest, Geum-ja has realized that by her allowing Mr. Baek to talk her into taking the fall which saved her child, she allowed for many other deaths to occur. The same way she shoves the phone with trinkets in the

face of Mr. Baek she does the same to the investigator, who looks instead into her eyes and tells her that those lives could have been saved if she never took the fall.