[We are] the Devil

Gordon Gray’s discussion of structuralist film theory, described in his book Cinema: A Visual Anthropology, asserts that the essential basis of structuralism is that we, as humans, look at our world through established sets of oppositional binaries (good/bad, left/right, land/water, etc.). The cinematic example he provides to better illustrate the relationships of such binaries to the world of film, is Star Wars; where Darth Vader is ‘bad’ and Luke Skywalker is ‘good.’ The simplicity of such a dichotomy (what structuralists define as a work’s ‘master antimony’ or central opposition), Gray suggests, is part of what made the film such a universal success.

South Korean director Kim Ji-Woon’s 2010 horror/thriller picture I Saw the Devil utilizes the same master antimony to drive the plot forward, good versus evil, but does so in a much more nuanced, complex, and, ultimately, disturbing way than we see in Lucas’s Star Wars. Whereas in a film such as Star Wars the action is driven by the fundamental opposition and battles between good and evil embodied by two specific forces (in Star Wars this is quite literally expressed), I Saw the Devil is more concerned with what Gray describes as ‘transitional zones’ where people, or characters, demonstrate both good and evil behaviors or attitudes and thus express the true complexity of human nature.

I Saw the Devil begins much like any other horror film, with a quiet road at night, where an unsuspecting, defenseless, and utterly innocent victim (in this case a young pregnant woman) is met by a ruthless, remorseless killer, Kyung-chul. Thus, we have, early on, the violation of what appears good by that which appears evil, and we, as the audience know where we stand: on the side of good and united against a vicious murderer. Thus, we identify with our film’s protagonist and the victim’s fiancé, special agent Soo-Hyun, who vows to bring the killer to justice.

At the moment of Soo-Hyun’s first encounter with Kyung-chul—who we, the audience, now know to be an utterly sadistic serial murder and rapist—we are ready to see the triumph of good over evil and watch an inhuman criminal be brought to a merciless justice. Much unlike the abhorrence felt during film’s previous gruesome murder scenes, we now feel a vengeful satisfaction as we watch Soo-Hyun brutally attack Kyung-chul and beat him within a hair’s breadth of his life. Then, Soo-Hyun stops. He breaks Kyung-chul’s arm, plants a tracking device on him and lets him go. Only to track him down again, beat him nearly to death again, cut his Achilles tendon, and, once again, release him. So the pattern continues, each time pushing the audience and the protagonist further away from their original position of moral authority. Yet, there is some level of viewing pleasure derived by the audience as we watch our protagonist slip into the role of a sadistic hunter and away from his earlier heroic position. We, much like Soo-Hyun, do not know where to draw the line between just punishment and sadistic, self-serving revenge.

At the end of the film, the audience’s position can best be described as one of ambivalence, even guilt, as we watch Soo-Hyun defy the police to exact revenge upon Kyung-chul. We are unsure whether we would prefer the violence to stop to watch Kyung-chul turn himself in (as he now plans to do) or if he should ‘get what he deserves’, a slow, painful death at the hands of Soo-Hyun. So our original, morally authoritative stance has now been completely destabilized by the blurring lines between vengeance and justice. It is no longer good versus bad, but, instead, it is the perpetuation of violence or the beginning of a vaguely unsatisfactory peace through lawful justice.

Source:

Gray, Gordon
         2010     Film Theory. Cinema: A Visual Anthropology. 35-72.