Sex plays a prominent part in the films of Kim Ki Duk, for example in "Bad guy" (2001) or "Samaria" (2004). Even in his more philosophical works such as "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring" (2003) sexual feelings are present in the background.
In the beginning "Bin Jip" seems no exception, a book with erotic art photography playing a recurrent role. It encourages a young man to masturbate, he looks images while in bath and irons those images afterwards. Only later the film becomes more purely philosophical.
The film is about a a young man staying in empty houses ("bin jip" means empty house). To determine which house in a neigborhood is empty he sticks leaflets on the frontdoors in the morning and watches which leaflets are still there in the evening. He does not steal anything, and in exchange for the self invited hospitality he does little repair jobs in return. In one house he meets an abused housewife who accompanies him since then.
In the beginning I tought the symbolism of the visits of the young man was "voyeurims". Only later it dawned on me that the symbolism was invisibility, just as the absence of dialogue for this character and the abused housewife stands for inaudibility.
The film gets more and more dependent on symbolism and associations. Some of which I did understand (when the young man stands on a scale for the first time he weights to heavy, when he stands on it together with his new found love the scale indicates a weight of zero), and some of which I don't. What for example is the meaning of golf in this picture? Apparently it is important, because an alternative title for the film is "3-iron", which indicates a (scarcely used) golfclub.
In the second half the film turns almost religious, the main character trying to dispose of his material body. By then I really lost the thread.
In the beginning "Bin Jip" seems no exception, a book with erotic art photography playing a recurrent role. It encourages a young man to masturbate, he looks images while in bath and irons those images afterwards. Only later the film becomes more purely philosophical.
The film is about a a young man staying in empty houses ("bin jip" means empty house). To determine which house in a neigborhood is empty he sticks leaflets on the frontdoors in the morning and watches which leaflets are still there in the evening. He does not steal anything, and in exchange for the self invited hospitality he does little repair jobs in return. In one house he meets an abused housewife who accompanies him since then.
In the beginning I tought the symbolism of the visits of the young man was "voyeurims". Only later it dawned on me that the symbolism was invisibility, just as the absence of dialogue for this character and the abused housewife stands for inaudibility.
The film gets more and more dependent on symbolism and associations. Some of which I did understand (when the young man stands on a scale for the first time he weights to heavy, when he stands on it together with his new found love the scale indicates a weight of zero), and some of which I don't. What for example is the meaning of golf in this picture? Apparently it is important, because an alternative title for the film is "3-iron", which indicates a (scarcely used) golfclub.
In the second half the film turns almost religious, the main character trying to dispose of his material body. By then I really lost the thread.