Moebius

New York Premiere

Q&A with actress Lee Eun-woo

A playfully twisted black comedy with no dialogue, Moebius is an everyday tale of penectomy, rape, sadomasochistic sex, and incestuous love. It continues maverick writer-director Kim Ki-duk’s journey into the madness of the Korean soul—though in a much more in-your-face way than last year’s Pietà. Marbled with references to earlier films like The Isle (genital mutilation), Bad Guy (tough, twisted love), and Pietà (“mother” love), plus numerous other titles, Moebius is a quintessentially Kim Ki-duk movie in its risk-taking and outsider feel, and could have been made by no other filmmaker currently working in the country. Words have never formed a major component of Kim’s films, which reveal themselves more through physical action than dialogue. But the absence here of any words (along with any names for the characters) brings an even more allegorical, universal aspect to the movie’s themes while still leaving it feeling absolutely South Korean in its emotional intensity. Moebius’s sheer cheek and bravado is more than welcome at a time when South Korea’s film industry has become more and more conventional, predictable, and risk-averse. Presented with the support of Korean Cultural Service in New York.