The Importance of Restriction: The Seeds of Violence

The Seeds of Violence’s (2017) primary achievement is it’s phenomenal devotion to its style. It utilises an extreme form of cinematic realism which restricts it’s boundaries to the purely diegetic, favouring extremely long-takes, a 4:3 aspect ratio and no scoring, with only a single break from the diegesis—the end credits of the film. Thus this act of restriction and stripping back many features, which are a norm of mainstream cinema, enhances the product, creating a world which is both consistent with itself and our everyday experience of our worlds. This is exactly what makes the film so interesting—the conscious act to remove features which would otherwise be unconsciously blanketed onto any film, instead only favouring the features which will assist the narrative and style. This jumped out at the films close, when it even avoided the almost unanimous convention to provide music over the closing credits, and the lights were not turned on until after the credits had finished. Again, this choice to remove a conventional feature had a profound effect. Everyone in the cinema sat still in the dark, there was no murmur, no communication, just a silent roll of white credits. It was as if the hand of the filmmaker still had it’s grasp on us, pushing us down in our seats. Thus this added time (and that the credits were in Korean) forced me to reassess the film and consider what I just watched for three extra minutes. This exemplifies the power of removing a feature that the film perfected so well.

Another interesting turn in the film, and possibly also a reason the credit sequence was so powerfully engaging, is the fact that the film ends abruptly with a cut. To explain it briefly, there is an intense scene between the two leads, which then concludes, one of them then goes to call their commanding officer and as the phone reaches his ear… CUT, the film ends and the title appears on screen. This act of misdirection, by starting a new scene only to end the film, is ingenious as it enhances the effect of the ending which isn’t televised in any way. It comes as a surprise and leaves us wanting more, wanting closure of the story, but then when the title appears ‘The Seeds of Violence’ it all makes sense—we don’t need closure as we have understood exactly the aim and topic of the film perfectly encapsulated by it’s title. This abruptness of ending works perfectly and, after this moment of consideration, doesn’t feel at all jarring—another perfect example of stripping back a conventional necessity (of tying up a narrative) to create a hugely powerful and relevant effect on the viewer. When I saw this cut, I let out a huge smile. They got me. I wasn’t expecting it, I was confused momentarily, then reading the title it all made sense and thus creates a perfect ending to the film—powerful, relevant and memorable.

My only critique of the film would lie very close to my praise in the difficult that this stark realism brings. By enforcing such a strong uncompromised aesthetic (no music, no overly-flamboyant cinematography, no obvious editing, etc.) the film trusts it’s content to be believed and connected to as if you were witnessing these events or being told of them by a friend. However when including cinematically difficult aspects such as physical violence it becomes complicated. I felt that these scenes somewhat broke from the realism on screen, jarring with it somehow. But pinpointing what that ‘somehow’ actually is I am finding difficult. Although a few different options have come to mind: (1) the violence on screen jars with my usual sense of cinematic-violence, which is obviously sensationalised, (2) the violence felt somewhat clumsily performed, (3) the sound design in the fights felt slightly off. Maybe it is a culmination of all three, combined with the fact that I only extremely rarely see physical violence in the flesh giving no realist point of comparison—instead my idea of cinematic (or media) violence is my primary resource in visualising or understanding violence, and it is obviously terribly skewed towards sensationalism. Regardless, the point still stands. The basis in a hugely coherent and believable realism means that if one element stands against that, even only very slightly, it stands out a lot.

The Seeds of Violence is a absolutely fascinating film which looks deep into unanimous problems of abuse while also looking deep into it’s stemming from certain elements of Korean culture. The stylistic certainty displayed by its creators (and director Taegue Lim) show great promise for the future of Korean Independent cinema.

3/4/3

10/13

~Leo