Oasis

The premise of this story challenges both of its romantic leads to use their bodies to convey the characters' emotions. Jong-du, played by Sol Kyung-gu, is an awkward ex-con whose older brother calls him immature but he seems a little crazy, or maybe mentally deficient. His family reluctantly helps him out, but he is an embarrassment and a nuisance to them.

Gong-ju (Moon So-ri) is a woman with cerebral palsy whose family is just as bad as Jong-du's. When Jong-du begins to visit her an odd relationship develops, with each bringing the other an acceptance and appreciation neither has felt before.

Moon So-ri's performance is so convincing I actually thought she had c.p. until a fantasy sequence showed what Gong-ju imagined herself doing if she were not disabled. But it's not just the contortions of c.p. that she portrays. She manages to show every possible emotion within the confines of c.p. spasms and she brings the character to life with a fully developed range of emotions and intellect.

Sol Kyung-gu's body language is just as effective, though his performance is easily overshadowed by Moon So-ri's. He is by turns menacing, sweet, dim-witted, shy, playful, inconsiderate and contrite, and most of this comes out through his body language.

I saw this movie with English subtitles, but the acting is so effective that you almost don't need to read them.

p.s. keep three hankies handy

The director had been known in Korea as a novelist before he started to make films. That must be the reason why his films give us always the impression that they are deeply literary much more than cinematic.

"Oasis" is a very literary film like his other films, but it also gives us the specific pleasure to watch movies by the imaginary scenes dreamed by a handicapped woman named Gong-ju, for instance. These scenes are sentimental, but they are incredibly beautiful and delicate (these pigeons and butterflies flying in her room, for example). And the scene where Gong-ju sings a song to another protagonist Jong-du must be one of the most beautiful scenes of "confession of love" ever depicted by a film. That is the moment, I am sure, when this film takes suddenly on the features of something sacred.

The director says this is a film about "border" as well as "communication." And in order to show the difficulty of communication and/or of going across the border, he tried to make Jong-du an abominable and disgusting person, especially at the beginning of the film. If you feel uncomfortable when you start to watch this film, you should consider that such discomfort was intentional even though the behaviors by Jong-du seem to be extremely violent and selfish. And you should also be patient until the "miraculous" moment of the "mutation" (from vulgarity to holiness) comes. You will certainly forget about the discomfort you had felt.

And this is naturally a film about Love. It shows us just "one of" the forms of love, should I probably say, since the one shown in this film is too special and peculiar, but still I am tempted to say: "This is the Love."

I though of "The Legend of St. Julian Hospitator" by Gustave Flaubert, but I do not know if I should expect that the protagonists would be called under the name of the "saints" or so. And I also remembered the heroine Sarah of "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene. Sarah writes in her diary, thinking of her lover named Maurice, with whom she had decided not to meet again because of the promise with God: "I'm not at peace any more. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I want to be eating sandwiches with him. I want to be drinking with him in a bar. I'm tired and I don't want any more pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love."

Once swore to God to separate from his lover, Sarah wants him always, being full of desires and wanting "corrupt human love" even just before her death. She stayed secular and even vulgar until the end, even though the author must have wished to lead her to the path toward God. And that is just why Sarah, that miserable mortal, stays always in my mind.

Same thing for Gong-ju and Jong-du. Their happiness may exist in this real world full of prejudice and discrimination, where ugly desire or ordinary cheapness of human life smears them. But it may also give them pleasure to love, to help each other, and/or to share something precious between them. They do not need God, but they just need each other.

Nobody knows whether or not the future will congratulate them in the end, but probably, as did the director, should I leave them in the room of Gong-ju, where many dusts floating in the air are shimmering with the sunlight, and Gong-ju seems to be smiling, reading the letter from Jong-du. We don't know if they will be able to finish their story, but anyway, they have started it. Everything is now up to them.

10/10.

"Oasis" is the story of the relationship of a man imprisoned by his mind with a woman imprisoned by her body. That they establish a relationship comes as much because of their handicaps as in spite of them.

I knew before seeing the film that Moon So-ri was an able-bodied actress. As a result, at first I wasn't convinced she was playing someone with cerebral palsy. But Lee Chang-dong does a brilliant thing. He films several scenes that become the imaginings and fantasies of Gong-ju, Moon's character, as an able-bodied woman. This had the effect on me of seeing Gong-ju as disabled. And it spells out clearly that cerebral palsy is a physical condition not a mental one.

Sol Kyung-gu as Jong-du is perfect. I've been describing Jong-du as "simple-minded" to others but that doesn't pinpoint his mental condition. I might say he is carefree but it's not just an attitude; he is carefree to the point of mental illness. His condition makes him act both bad (he's been in prison three times) and good (he absolutely sees right through Gong-ju's handicap and truly comes to care for her). While Gong-ju is frustrated over her condition and how others use her it, Jong-du appears so utterly accepting of his fate that he doesn't even defend himself. I can't stop thinking about how Mr. Sol has played this interesting character.

Both Gong-ju's and Jong-du's families scorn and pity their conditions. But watch how they also come to exploit them as well.

I highly recommend this film.

I get to see a Korean Movie now and then, and, even though i didnt understand a word of dialogue in this film, it was easy to tell what was going on. Oasis is the tale of a mentally disabled man who has recently been released from prison. Shortly after leaving, he attempts to rape a young physically disabled woman in her apartment. He comes to his senses, and apologizes later, and forms a powerful bond of understanding. while to most americans, Gong- Ju's fantasies might seem a little...odd (the dancing woman and the elephant is a perfect example,) it just goes to show that our cinema has lost most (if not all) heart. I would strongly urge anyone who is into Korean cinema to watch this film, it is a truly touching experience.

I don't know if anyone has said this same comment but I want to get into the commentary here. Roger Ebert is a great reviewer and his review of Oasis is worthy. Except for the part about "Idiot Plot" ... I think he's just simply missed it. The family didn't tell the police the relevent info - why? perhaps you have to think Korean and perhaps, even more to the point, they wanted him to go to jail. My two cents.

This is a very fine and significant movie and stands as one of the best, ever. It has more humanity in a thimble-full than any of its American cinema contemporaries. Well, I'm willing to stand corrected - again, my nickle.

See this movie.