Review of Spider Forest (2004) by Tim M — 19 Mar 2009

This is a very strange, but fascinating movie. Kang Min awakens in a forest and stumbles to a nearby house where he finds a dead man and a dying woman, victims of a violent assault. Spotting a man fleeing from the house, Min gives chase and is struck by car, sustaining a grievous head injury.

From there, the story progresses as apparent flash backs to the events leading up to that moment, and the investigation of the apparent murders. Notice I said "apparent" twice in the last sentence-because this is where things get weird: many of the event are mutually exclusive; if one thing is real, then others must be a dream or false memory.

But this is also where the movie shines-the director takes us inside the head of a man desperately trying to reconstruct his fractured memories, fantasies and dreams. Although the story is not coherent in a chronological sense, it is coherent in the sense of collecting Min's loves, fears, aspirations and failures.

A lovely film, just don't think that you will be able to suss out the "real" story, because there isn't one.