Ab-normal Beauty

Sei mong se jun (2004), South Korea

Director : Oxide Pang

Produced : Pang Brothers

Synopsis

Ab-normal Beauty describes the story of Jin, an extremely talented arts student and photographer who finds herself with no inspiration in her work, seeking for what she defines as the ideal picture. After witnessing a car crash, the main character discovers to have a fascination with death, as she enthusiastically starts photographing the accident. At this moment, the viewer is promptly introduced to an obsession that the main character will eventually have to face along with the tumultuous repressed memories from her past.

Review

Ab-normal Beauty is a psychological horror film that explores the abnormal obsession and repressed memories of Jin, a perfectionist photographer with a troubled past and a clear lack of communication with her often absent mother. The first two thirds of the movie describe Jin’s growing obsession with death and an initial struggle to face the memories of a past traumatic sexual event, with sporadic moments of bizarre and aggressive violence that illustrate Jin’s disconnection from the reality. Race Wong does a proper work with her lead role as, interestingly enough, her real life sister Rosanne plays her lesbian girlfriend Jas. It is in fact the presence and comfort in Jas that ultimately appears to allow the main character to overcome her macabre obsession. In the last third of the movie, Jin finds herself back in a Lost Highway, when a videotape is left at her front door containing images of a brutal murder. The last half hour is thus unexpectedly feed with gruesome moments, explicit violence (that may be considered atypical in the Pang brothers’s filmography), voyeurism, masturbation and even auto-erotic asphyxiation. The scenes may somehow seem to be displaced to the viewer, yet their purpose is well placed in the movie as the unknown murderer appears to represent the extremely masculinized figure representing Jin's fear of being victimized by men.

While the argument appears to draw on contours of the biographical drama of a tortured artist who seems to find a bizarre beauty in a pile of decapitated chickens or in the corpse of a dog, unexpectedly followed by half hour of unpredicted violence, and whether or not the end really works, the viewer is expected to keep in mind that, all in all, Ab-normal Beauty shall be seen as a journey in which the main character is allowed to overpass her traumatic sexual experience. The character development at some point seems to be particularly accelerated during the first two thirds of the movie, as nothing much appears to occur. The peculiar fascination for death could have been developed in a much proper way, appearing to be, at some points, rushed and meaningless and not as deeper as the director would have wished. The film is beautifully filmed as expected from the Pang Brothers, the art and the use of red during the filming are particularly stunning, with a few brilliant moments such as the balcony scene, and others left to interpretation as the bath’s scene (cf. screenshot above). All in all, the film definitely has a few strong elements although it seems obvious that the director could have better exploited their potential. Accordingly, Ab-normal Beauty is without a doubt not comparable to The Eye for those seeking for similar experiences by the Pang brothers, although it remains a particularly interesting effort of Oxide Pang.