It feels like the film community is still riding on the high of Bong Joon-ho and Parasite’s big night at the Oscars not too long ago. Can you blame us? Parasite is such a singularly special film, the kind that rarely gets recognized on this level at the Oscars (if it gets recognized by them at all). If the buzz on Twitter is any indication, fans all over the world are channeling that energy into diving deeper into international film, with a particular emphasis on Parasite’s native South Korea. It’s always a special thing when a film can act as a gateway drug into a new world of cinema – and Bong is right: once you overcome the one-inch barrier of subtitles, there’s a whole lot out there to discover.
Even more casual film fans may have dipped their toes in Korean film before Parasite. Films like Oldboy and Train To Busan have been particularly accessible over the years thanks to strong word-of-mouth in the instance of the former and consistent availability on Netflix for the latter. As far as world cinema goes, it’s a sect that has a pretty high profile in comparison to other nations outside of the States. However, much of it remains unexplored by American audiences – though that seems primed to change in the wake of the Oscars.
Between features similar to these and the multitude of lists and threads circling social media this week, a few things are clear: one, there’s no single film that can sum up the entirety of Korean cinema. To claim there is does a disservice to viewers and that film community alike. It’s also worth noting that while Bong Joon-ho remains one of the great modern directors of all time, his films are not the end-all-be-all of what Korean cinema has to offer. To pretend the nation’s output is contained to his filmography is a narrow-minded way of looking at things. As such, it feels pertinent to suggest that if you’re in the mood for some discovery (and have already blown through Bong’s films), you really oughta consider giving the 2016 possession epic The Wailing a shot.
The Wailing is the perfect post-Parasite film not because it resembles the film in tone or narrative so much as because it does so many of the things that make Parasite great but in totally different ways. One of the common points of Parasite praise is how deftly the film juggles a variety of tones and genres, making it incredibly hard to classify without stringing together a handful of words (a social comedy thriller feels right?). This juggling act isn’t exclusive to Parasite. The more you delve into Korean cinema the more you’ll find that it’s common practice.
Korean films like I Saw the Devil, The Host, and The Wailing feel little need to be just one thing, one kind of movie. Instead they incorporate elements from a variety of genres, leading to films that feel far more singular to Western audiences who have grown up in a film world that prioritizes clarity of genre. The Wailing is, as previously noted, best classified as a possession epic. It’s a long film, clocking in at a bit over two and a half hours, and centers on a police officer investigating a series of grisly illnesses that lead to grislier murders in his village.
But even that description sells short just how much is going on in this film. Over the course of its lengthy runtime it takes its characters (and viewers with them) through a dense, complicated story about demons, faith, sin, and the battle between good and evil. On top of that is an intimate story about a father trying to save his daughter, what appears to be an allegory about xenophobia and the fear of the other, and a police procedural.
Like Parasite, it’s hard to imagine Hollywood trusting any director to make something as risky on paper. But that’s the thing – nothing about The Wailing feels risky. It’s executed with such grace and precision by director Na Hoong-jin that you’ll simultaneously be amazed it works as well as it does and furious that Hollywood doesn’t allow for storytelling like this in our film market.
You have never seen a possession movie like The Wailing, not because it’s more or less graphic than classics of the American genre like The Exorcist or because it reinvents the narrative from the ground up but because it simply handles every trope of the genre just a little bit differently. Protagonist Jong-goo serves as a microcosm of this lack of ties to tropes. An American version of The Wailing would position Jong-goo as a police chief or detective, either a hypercompetent top gun or a guy who’s on thin ice thanks to past mistakes. He’d have some deeper personal tie to the grander mystery, have a more complicated home life than he does in the version of the film we have. Instead, Jong-goo is just…a guy. He’s kind of a doofus, profoundly simple-minded and normal. He’s competent enough as a cop but just enough of an idiot for you to understand the way he moves through the story. That’s crucial, as ostensibly The Wailing should be about how ordinary people react when faced with otherworldly evil, something existentially larger than them. Jong-goo’s simplicity lends further credibility to his actions and emotional arc, which in turn makes him feel like a more authentically human creation than you’re likely to find in most movies of this scale.
The film also notably defies horror conventions. There is minimal scoring throughout, which means musical cues don’t play into creating scares. Speaking of which, there aren’t even any real scares in the sense that we’re used to seeing them play out. Jump scares and setpieces centered around the build to a climactic scare aren’t to be found in The Wailing. Instead each setpiece contains some further horror, sometimes quiet and sometimes bombastic, each threading seamlessly into the next and creating two and a half hours of pure terror – the climactic scene is among the most frightening scenes the medium has ever produced. It builds on everything that has come before it and handles every complex twist, turn, and reveal with such ease you almost don’t notice how much work must have gone into it.
Hollywood will never produce a film quite like The Wailing, just as they’ll never be able to do what Bong Joon-ho does in Parasite (even if that HBO remake ends up happening). There are plenty of reasons to explore the world of film outside of our country, but one of the most rewarding is the way it can open your eyes up to just what can be accomplished in the medium of film when you step away from the tropes, narratives, and character archetypes we’ve been conditioned to expect. You can stream The Wailing on Shudder now and see for yourself.
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