3-iron

it's been a while since i saw a film to think about. spring, summer, fall, winter...and spring was incredible, samaritan girl was so-so. but 3-iron is again very good. Kim Ki-duk might be the best korean director of today.
my interpretations have different levels;
on the auteur level, and i have to discuss with Mithat Bey to see whether he thinks him to be an auteur, in these three films i saw of his, i see the recurrent themes of innocence, conscience and guilt. not to speak of the fact that he is writing and directing and the same cinematic style with smooth and almost minimal camera movement.

on the social level, the film, with the golf club (easily taken as the symbol of upper classes) as the only weapon, seems to criticize the empty lives (and houses) of the korean bourgeoisie. moreover there is an overt criticism of marriage institution.

on the psychoanalytic level, and this is the interpretation i would give if anyone bothered to ask, the protagonist seems to have the need to cast off his ego. our egoes are constructed in relation to an other, and how that other (or others) view us. his desire is to become invisible from the beginning, he wants to escape the gazes of others. when at the end, in prison he overcomes his physical boundaries (and here is a clear reference to eastern philosophy as explored in spring, summer...) he can do it only by annihilating or taking direct control of his ego. the obsession with the golf club, which eventually results in injuring a bypasser, is the consequence of the need of self-definition by the young boy. after punishing the husband and having a contact with the other (both the woman and the husband) he gains an access to his own self-definition. either through love or anger. i won't go into the specifics of the scenes and the place of language/or the absence of language and its effect on the formation of ego (of course a Lacanian analysis) here, but the pyschoanalytic reading makes the most of the film and repudiates all the useless arguments about how this film is a journey to the dreams.