Barbarian Invasion

Is it a comedy? An action film? A philosophical treatise? Barbarian Invasion is all of these, even if it starts off quietly – timidly almost. Li Yoon Moon drags her young son around with her; the sole purpose of his existence seems to be to exhaust his mother. She arrives to visit someone who at first seems to be an old friend, but we soon realise he is actually a director looking to cast her for his latest project. Are we going to make a Hong Sang-soo film, she asks? He’s more interested in a Malaysian Bourne Identity, and asks her to undertake three months of intensive martial arts training for the role.

The film goes through several surprising changes of direction and tone, all of which are however coloured by an extremely dry sense of humour. There are musings on how the film industry treats actresses, as well as on Eastern philosophy. If you look closely, you might catch a glimpse of Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia on a bookshelf. The composition of the book is rooted in the concept of rhizomatic philosophy – where different elements interact together to form a single entity – which is mirrored in the film's structure: from island to island.

---
Available on Festival Scope Pro from 26 January 9:00 CET to 14 February 9:00 CET