Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Nikki (Unit 26) - Oldboy (2003) Notes

Genre Analysis:

Thriller: One convention of the thriller genre that is used a lot in Oldboy is the use of jump cuts to unsettle the audience.
Thriller: This film follows the usual ‘Good guy VS. Bad guy’ theme of the thriller genre.
Thriller: There are many violent scenes in this film.

Differences In The Films:

A lot of this version of Oldboy is told through Dae-su’s internal narration as opposed to dialogue.
The music that is used in the Korean version of Oldboy is a lot different to the American version.
The techniques used to film the earlier version are also a lot different to the Hollywood way of shooting the film.

Psychoanalysis:

Surreal: The film opens with Dae-su holding a man over a building by his tie. This then cuts to a scene with a man who has a bleeding nose. There is no context to what is happening leaving the audience unsure.
Surreal: The audience see ants crawling all over Dae-su, this is unsettling and confusing as they are not sure if it is real or a hallucination.
Surreal: Another scene that leaves the audience feeling uneasy would be where we see Dae-su gorging on a live octopus.
Surreal: Further on in the film we see a man who is wearing a gas mask lay in bed with Dae-su and Mido. There is also no context to this which unsettles the audience.
Uncanny: There is an instance of the Uncanny in the scene at the restaurant where both Mido and Dae-su wonder if they know eachother.

Repression: There is also a symbol of repression in Oldboy shown in the scene where a lady’s knees trigger a memory for Dae-su.

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