When The Rich Are Harder To Digest

Three Extremes is a 2004 anthology horror film consisting of three different segments directed by three separate East Asian directors. “Dumplings”, the first segment being directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan, the second segment, “Cut” (which is the one I will be focusing on today) directed by Park Chan-wook, and the final segment being “Box”, directed by Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike. I previously wrote a piece about the first segment, and this time, I’d like to focus on the Park Chan-wook directed middle-third. Short films and short stories can be just as impactful and meaningful as feature length films and full novels. They often don’t get as much attention as their counterparts, however their value to the artistic space can be just as meaningful.

From frame one Cut is presented in a thoroughly haunting, almost menacing tone as it subverts expectation time and time again. Constantly keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat with smart shot-framing techniques that ramp up the profoundly creepy and intense mood and solid performances from the small cast. The visual story telling, combining intensely visceral imagery without becoming disorienting while at the same time portraying the emotions of each respective character with dialogue moving the narrative forward while also being in service to Park Chan-wook’s propensity for framing a story rather than directly telling it. By my estimation what sets this work apart and truly catapults it to something special is in the motivations and presentation of it’s antagonist being something far more complex.

A successful director (played by the always fantastic Lee Byung-hun) is captured along with his wife and forced to partake in a twisted and mentally harrowing social experiment by one of his former employees (played by the equally excellent Im Won-hee.) Forced to partake in sadistic and cruel mind games, the director must quickly make the right decisions. Fail and the severity of the consequences are of the most unforgiving type. The stakes are high, the outlook is bleak, and the setting is an all too familiar one that the director knows quite well.

An understated but intelligent detail of this work is the namelessness of its main players. Keeping the anonymity not only keeps a certain air of mystery to proceedings which I believe is the intent of this work from an emotional standpoint that lends into its horror well, but also for the sake of connection to the audience. As opposed to seeing people separated completely separated from ourselves by being given personal identifiers, even one as simple as a name, contrasting fortunes butting heads together, these characters could be anyone in the right (or I suppose in this case, the worst of) circumstances.

Lesser works might have focused on material greed, selfishness, jealousy of the director’s position and the presumably lavish lifestyle he leads when out of public earshot. They may still all be an element of the motivation, yes, but the primary driving force behind the antagonist’s desires to cause harm to the director, is because on top of everything at his disposal, he is also an extremely nice man. Rich AND good is “unfair” to everyone else, the employee says as he recalls messing up on set badly and being patiently forgiven by the director. His motivation is to turn him into the irredeemable corrupt monster he imagines all people of the director’s stature to be, nay, “SHOULD” be, as he digs through his mind and soul. Knowing full well that no matter how genuinely good and kind one can be and as much truthful and honest effort can be put into that soul, no one can be wholly as clean as they want to be. Putting the director in an unfair character assassination inherently rigged against him. Not too unlike the capitalistic system keeping the employee “in his place.”

Purely strength of character as it pertains to roles in the story and shared humanity is center stage and the film is better for it. It doesn’t excuse or justify the greed and exploitation often laid at the feet of those in the 1%. Rather shows another side to it. And since it’s not focusing on someone born with a silver spoon in hand or hardened calculating businessman, it doesn’t feel incongruous with our real world. Where the relatively clean exterior is just a means for the soulless and ruthless to continue the pathos of the life they’ve chosen with the power they’ve gained. The subversion of social class in a role reversal that shows us what we could become, the monstrosity rivaling anything a wealthy artist like the director in question could possibly think up on his own, offers a sobering look at our collective classes moral compass. It doesn’t offer an alternative outlook of fairness. Not only would that not be in keeping with the tone of the work, it would also be less impactful and obtrusive, especially given that this is a short film, not a feature length and therefore more limited in its time to do what it intends to.

It is a meta-commentary on the film industry, in particular how directors are capable of undervaluing the smaller roles played amongst the cast and crew. Undervaluing the effort put in on their part and the importance that they play in bringing their vision to life. But it is just as much a piece about how our respective earnings brackets do not inherently decide how good or evil of a person we will be. The lesser successful people are just as capable of evil as more successful people are. The ideas are of course mutually intelligible when taking the plot into account, however it’s presented in a manner that never feels heavy handed or contrived and, without revealing too much, thematically congruous with the events that take place. It is with a sense of self awareness and understanding that we can keep ourselves from becoming the very thing we swore we wouldn’t become when money is brought into the respective situation.

With the popular motif of our modern reality to be to dump on anyone with a notable salary no matter what I found it particularly interesting that this piece is somewhat of the inverse. Undoubtedly criticism of the rich can absolutely be warranted, but letting that distaste fester into something resembling blind and unmeasured hatred is ill-advised, as would any kind of blissfully ignorant opposition to anything or anyone.