Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: HOPE [Cannes Film Festival - Cannes, France]

Going into the idea of “Hope” [Competition] it sounded like a mystery that consumes a town but the sheer scale of what it begins to show is literally something else...and much more ambitious. This should have been clear in its running time at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The film starts off as most good South Korean films do: with a sense of unease but humor of what it is unfolding. What one sees starts simply as the massacring of cows (not horses) and then starts cannonballing into the destruction of a town along the edge of the DMZ in a rural town. Of course this a metaphor for a ticking time bomb for sure. The reason that this film works is that it intercuts like a TV series in between the different groups moving forward but with a huge budget. This is an event film to be sure and interestingly enough after the first hour and a half you have seen one film but it opens to another (distinctly different but with the same kinetic energy). The film uses simple locations but the production design, (especially in the first half of the film) is masterful. What is also intriguing are the different number of heroes in a way. There are a lot of mistakes the characters make but that is understandable. The car chase scenes both on foot and in vehicles are thrilling to watch and it ups the audience participation as needed. The details of the mythology start being revealed and while massive in scope they do start getting too far out there with no context. There is a disconnect from the characters that we consider on the wrong side of the coin and the intelligence they are acting towards or with.

This becomes even clearer when you finally realize who is playing these creatures per se. And yet in many ways, especially during forest scenes there is a lot of ammunition unleashed yet there is an ability for a bridge though the path is not taken at all. Whether the human characters are too afraid or not seeing the bigger picture is a little problematic in terms of the narrative...and also on the reverse which seems almost primal (which doesn't make as much sense with very late scenes). And yet the camerawork and the literal consistent bedlam is hard to ignore from an entertainment point of view (though some actions scenes tend to go on too long). The action is consistent and vicious but the rules of them only change at specific points abd when they do,especially when one of the locals starts galloping on a horse while fighting doss it make one think of a modern day samurai movie but with the modern clothing and connotation left over from The Korean War. It is a neat idea but alot of the details again are all over the place.

The use of locals taking the law and protection in their own hands is very clear in the beginning, but not so much towards the end. The tone in the last quarter of the film is cool but quite uneven especially after another event happens that pushes the situation up a notch in terms of scale. It does works without completely overdoing it. The question is where it goes and will audiences (it is getting a theatrical release via Neon later this year) show up. It is an unusual film to be in competition for the Palme D’Or, an irony since Peter Jackson says that some of his films wouldn’t belong here but times are changing. Director Na Hong-Jin is creating a world and definitely sets the action bar high but it is the question of the spectacle taking over the story. There are little details, in a freezer on a farm and inside an orb in a forest that really are cool mirroring everything from "Aliens" to "Avatar" to "Predator" so there is a base here. This is good company to be in and there is preciseness of action and character but also of character practicality and problem solving. At the same time, the storytelling is also ignorant in many ways (again keeping away from spoilers by talking around the plot) but even in the final image the question of what is being fought for specifically, on many levels, is still elusive. Still "Hope" is a ride. B

By Tim Wassberg