If the Japanese have their yokaithe Chinese their jiangshiKoreans also have their demons to fight. Assumed like a ghost film, in a supernatural appearance such as we have rarely seen since the screening of The Strangers in Cannes in 2016, Connecting invests the horror genre with great authority and creativity. To do this, a team made up of a geomancer, an undertaker, a shaman and her sidekick reopens the scars of a schizophrenic nation that has lived for too long under the influence of the Japanese Empire.
Between exorcism and investigations into insidious cult maneuvers, the first two films by Jang Jae-hyun (The Priests et Svaha : The Sixth Finger) already encapsulated the desire to let the dead express themselves. Whispers and shadows arise from beyond the grave to question the limits of faith and belief. How can they thwart the duty to remember? How can we honor and soothe the souls of the dead, buried with their regrets? Far from being the first to pull such a folkloric and supernatural lever, the monster and ghost film can quickly fall into comparison with The Strangerswho has lost none of his mastery. Without pushing the vice knobs to excess, in a game of possession that offers wonderful thrills, Connecting prefers to play on a playful narration, even if it means interlocking two investigations which literally overlap.
Calling from the grave
Openness in no way plays the card of ambiguity like Sleep. In Jang Jae-hyun’s contemporary universe, ghosts do exist. When a wealthy Korean expatriate family in the United States suspects an ancestral curse affecting their baby’s behavior, the forces of light quickly mobilize to remedy it. Shamanism and geomancy feng shui pool their strengths to isolate the evil that emanates from a mysterious tomb on the misty mountains. Was there any point in discovering what was hidden there? Before discovering it, the director takes the time to let the spectators become familiar with the mystical, religious and administrative practices of the main quartet.
It is not only a question of exhuming bodies trapped in the earth, but also of traumas which relate to the historical duality between Korea and Japan. This is why the geomancer Kim Sang-deok, played by Choi Min-sik (still prolific on the local scene since Old Boy), is asked to study the location of the graves. A subject also covered in the Poltergeist by Tobe Hooper (or is it Steven Spielberg?) who has all his importance in this quite thrilling genre film. The colonization of the country therefore did not leave happy memories behind it. Whether we go back a century or even five, the Japanese have always played the wrong role in their desire to establish and impose their imperialism. The family’s origins bear witness to this, as their fortune was acquired at the cost of the blood and tears of their compatriots, notably during the Second World War.
The tiger’s bite
The first part focuses exclusively on the hidden side of this dark story, where the paranormal knows no boundaries. Jang Jae-hyun’s camera does not shake and plays as much as possible with off-camera and depth of field. The trick to the adrenaline rush also comes from the choral narration and sound mixing, which speeds up as a climax approaches. In this, this first hour proves to be playful and keeps the promise of the crescendo when the protagonists are led to take a step back from their involvement. One sequence in particular catches our attention, when Lee Hwa-rim dances to neutralize the negative waves of a land burned and cursed by the past. This shaman played by Kim Go-eun thus steals the spotlight from her male associates, who still provide entertainment, because group cohesion is what works best in this universe which seems to belong to darkness.
If the first half of the film spared its special effects, the second does not put a brake on its creativity. Even if we won’t reveal anything about the film’s final issues, we should note that the remarkable work of cinematographer Lee Mo-gae (The Age of Shadows, Battleship Island, Hunt, 12.12: The Day) brings a lot of credibility to the supernatural and optimistic experience that we are given to live. This desire to unify the audience behind the historical drama, but also behind strong emotions, was important for the filmmaker who wrote the plot during the Covid-19 pandemic. This explains this restraint and benevolence that he has for his audience. “ People got used to streaming during the pandemic and this movie reminded them of the joy of going to see a movie on the big screen “, is the observation of the filmmaker, conscious of appropriating the same gadgets that Na Hong-jin exploited The Chaser has The Strangers. These are processes which still have their effect, although we know the mechanism. To better benefit from it, you have to let yourself be trapped.
Celebrated with great enthusiasm from the Berlinale to the Strange Festival, including a triumph at the domestic box office (more than 12 million admissions), Connecting renews its success halfway through this 19th edition of the FFCP. With a drama that lets the historical duality between Korea and Japan express itself, Jang Jae-hyun’s film also shines in its brief forays into humor and its sobriety in developing the thrill. Some people might find this last point a little understated, but this story is more of a thriller full of history than a more sensational bisserie, like a Dr. Cheon and the lost talisman or a Last train to Busan. Let’s hope that the euphoria can continue with the filmmaker’s next (already tempting) project: a vampire film in Korea, with the Greek-Russian Orthodox church as a backdrop.
This film is presented in preview at the 19th edition of the Korean Film Festival in Paris.
Connecting : trailer
Connecting : technical sheet
Titre original : PA-MYO
Direction & Screenplay : Jang Jae-hyun
Interpreters : Min-sik Choi, Go-eun Kim, Hai-jin Yoo & Do-hyun Lee
Artistic direction : Seo Seong-gyeong
Director of Photography : Lee Home
Montage : Jung Byung-jin
Costumes : Choe Yun-seon
Son : Kim Byeong-in
Original music : Kim Tae-seong
Producer : Charlie Shin, Jae-hyun Jang, Young-min Kim & Jee-hye Kim
Production : Showbox / Pinetown Production
Country of production : South Korea
