I signed up for the Criterion Collection last month because I wanted to watch two Pasolini movies: Medea and Oedipus Rex. Then I failed to cancel my subscription. So I thought I'd check out their holdings re: Korean films. Frankly, it's not extensive. But among the few movies that popped up in my search results were a handful by Korean-American Ougie Pak. Unfamiliar with his work, I decided to watch Clytaemnestra, an hour-long film about a Korean troupe of actors rehearsing Aeschylus' Agamemnon in Greece. (Notice a theme?) More specifically, the movie focuses on the woman (Haru Kim) cast in the lead female role then demoted to Cassandra then demoted further to the chorus.
Her ongoing humiliation is painful to watch. And it doesn't end with losing increasingly smaller roles either. Interestingly, Pak's Clytaemnestra works not so much because of the anguish emoted by the female lead. Credit instead the performance of her foil played by Jongman Kim. As the director of the film's experimental production abroad, this dynamite actor sustains intensity whether he's telling his cast to increase their energy, drunkenly exiting a post-rehearsal drinking binge, or berating his former leading lady for bad behavior. Even a handwave dismissing the fired and disgraced actress feels loaded with meaning and attitude. Is the play within the movie any good? Is the replacement actress (Kim Taehee) any better? It's questionable. Which makes this film's effectiveness that much more mysterious. I knew the end from the start. Isn't that how it always works with Greek tragedies? Isn't that part of the pleasure?
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