Summary
An atmospheric mystery film that keeps the audience guessing for the duration. It also marks the arrival of a new voice in South Korean cinema.
Lim Sang-Su’s debut feature opens with a gloriously vivid shot of a lake surrounded by mountains. As we soak in these seemingly tranquil surrounds, the title DROWN (드라운) drops on screen, positively dripping with foreboding. So begins this moody thriller that skirts the lines between waking worlds of grief and trauma and a dreamlike otherness.
When we meet Do-woo (Lee Joong-ok), he is scrubbing the toilets of the Motel Alps. Moments later, he see the swinging feet of someone who has killed themselves by hanging from a water pipe. As the owner of the rundown motel, largely used by GIs, his defeated attitude is indicative that he has seen it all before. The lake is filled with the bodies of thousands of Korean War victims after all.
Coupled with the burdens of caring for his mother, who is suffering with dementia, he maintains a remote and quiet existence. When his mother goes missing in the dead of winter, everyone pitches in to help him find her. Yet when she fails to turn up, suspicion turns towards Do-woo. The fact that he was under the influence of his mother’s sleeping pills doesn’t help his defence.
What follows is an atmospheric mystery, with a perpetual question hanging over the film: did Do-woo do it? More to the point, does Do-woo even know if he did? When a local hostess and a mysterious stranger also start staying at Do-woo’s otherwise empty hotel, we’re left with even more questions. In fact, for part of the movie one might even wonder if these figures are there at all or simply other aspects of Do-woo. It’s the kind of ambiguous drama South Korean cinema has been so good at, from Bong Joon-ho’s Mother through to Lee chang-dong’s Burning. Even if you aren’t engaged in the core mystery, the world that Lim creates has a way of drawing you in.
With its snow-capped surroundings and dense forests, there’s some serious Twin Peaks vibes coming out of this isolated corner of South Korea. As we see the recurring motifs of a woman’s hands, violent encounters or a dog named Fluffy, Lim skillfully refuses to let us know how much of it is in Do-woo’s head. Sometimes we will see him wake up in a cold sweat. Yet there’s another scene where someone dramatically vomits blood over him at a restaurant, and the scene plays out as though it is a waking moment.
Lim doesn’t leave us with any easy answers either, ostensibly wrapping up one mystery while leaving us with dozens of other questions. For some viewers, this approach may not sustain engagement for the duration, and that’s fair too: Lim is deliberately cold and chaotic in equal measure. Yet as the closing shot arrives, a near-mirror shot of the opening save for the sun hanging low in the sky, we acknowledge that Lim has taken us full circle. Whether the cycle will repeat is yet to be seen.
2022 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Lim Sang-Su | WRITER: Lim Sang-Su | CAST: Lee Joong-ok, Kim Daegeon, Kim Yeongyo, Byeon Junghui, Kang Malgeum, Kong Minjeong | DISTRIBUTOR: Studio Bonanza, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022 (NL) | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 January – 6 February 2022 (IFFR)
