Review of The Isle (2000) by Garry J — 08 Jun 2007

I watched Kim Ki-Duk's The Coastguard about a year before watching The Isle. The latter disappointed me but not the former. What I like about The Isle is that the inner turmoil of the characters is brought out quite successfully.

It's like a Wong Kar Wai film in that respect - it's not so much about the destination than it is about the feeling of the journey. However, the characters' lack of dialogue did seem a little forced and artificial.

I think Ki-Duk wanted to portray a feeling that can't be described, but that doesn't mean you can't have dialogue that inadvertantly brings across those feelings in the viewer, without actually plainly saying what the feeling is.

This film tries very hard, the 2nd part of the story is where it really hits the nail on the head. However to me it was just a good effort rather than a great film.