The Wailing (Goksung) (2016)

This Korean film Goksung has a few different names, like the Wailing. The French title is actually another English title, The Stranger. It refers to a Japanese man in a Korean village. The movie has a pretty negative depiction of the Japanese, as expected from a Korean perspective. What is a little more surprising is its commentary on religion. It definitely says something about Christianity and about traditional shamanism, but after sitting through 2.5 hours, I'm not positive what the message is for it is seemingly critical of both.  A number of people left the theater during the shaman ritual, which was admittedly over the top and proved a little too much for their French sensibilities. It really harps on the doubting Thomas, seeing-is-believing story, but I'm not sure if we're meant to believe in the end even after we've seen it. In short, I was still quite confused by the end and discussing it only brought slight clarity. The film opens with a passage from the Bible, which is later referred to in the film. But what we hear in dialogue seemingly contradicts what we see on screen. So then what purpose does the epigraph serve? Is it to throw us off the scent? Is it to mock Christianity or perhaps all religion?

The movie is a gruesome horror film. It was not marketed that way in the synopsis. I thought it was going to be a police detective mystery. But that is misleading because a mystery should have a clever solution, whereas this film offers no clear solution. And though he is nominally a police officer, there is some really shoddy police work in this movie. Why don't you arrest him? I was not expecting to see so many scary movies at a classy film festival like Cannes. And this was probably the scariest one I saw. It isn't a zombie movie how we know them, but there are certainly elements of zombie movies in it. It preys on our fear of the unknown and succeeds in keeping us up at night.