Bin-jip

3-Iron is not entirely without violence (with the golf ball as ammunition and the 3-iron as the weapon), yet the productive and self-taught South Korean Kim Ki-Duk would appear to have entered a more romantic and spiritual period after Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. 3-Iron is a stunning existential fable about loneliness, pain, happiness, property, the (in)visible and (un)speakable and of course about love. Tae-Suk is an outsider who stays in other people’s houses, invisible to the world, in other words, where the junk mail has not been cleared up (the Korean title Bin-jip means `empty houses’). He does so as a kind of friendly ghost: instead of making a mess he waters the plants, does the washing and repairs clocks and sets of scales. One day he is staying in a luxury house with beautiful photos of a model on the wall when he is spied on by that very same model, Seon-Hwa, who is covered in bruises. Their love affair starts when Tae-Suk reaches for the golf clubs to stop her husband from abusing her and Seon-Hwa jumps on the back of his motorbike. Together they continue enjoying his lifestyle. In every new house, each with its own peculiarities, their relationship seems to grow stronger. And in all that time they don’t exchange a single word – 3-Iron is an almost silent film. When their trespassing catches up with them, Tae-Suk ends up in jail and Seon-Hwa has to return to her husband. Is there still room for their love? (GT)