The debutant Lee was previously assistant director to Bong Joon-Ho on his film Memories of Murder (2003) and shares with his teacher not only a sharp eye for ordinary Koreans and their everyday problems with the authorities but also his narrative flair. Possessed is an effective horror story, but as the original Korean title, ‘The Hell of the Unbelievers’, indicates, there is a special social context. Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, shamanism and of course modern atheism exist side by side in the film, and this means that everyone reacts in different ways to inexplicable events.
When 13-year-old So-Jin disappears, her elder sister Hee-Jin returns to the apartment of their religious-maniac mother. The cop Tae-Hwan, who reluctantly has to take the case seriously, is confronted with more and more suicides that are difficult to explain rationally. And why does the sceptical Hee-Jin, who keeps having gruesome encounters with suicides, have to keep coughing?
Film details
- Country of production
- South Korea
- Year
- 2009
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2010
- Length
- 106'
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
