This often startling account of a progressively S&M tinged love affair (and, yes, that is the right word for it) between an 18 year old schoolgirl and a married man twice her age remains currently banned in its native South Korea where it's considered pornographic. In a sense it is, considering how much of the film's running time is devoted to fairly explicit (at times clearly non-simulated) sexual encounters. What sets this film apart from other recent releases that have incorporated hardcore footage as part of their narrative (like the astonishing BAISE-MOI or Lars Von Trier's THE IDIOTS) is that here there is actual warmth and sensuality to the copulation sequences, even when the protagonists are beating the feces out of each other, making it much harder one presumes for moralists to condemn on grounds of lacking humanity or compassion. Not that they would allow themselves to be seduced by this deeply moving yet quietly disturbing film in the first place. I for one found it exquisitely erotic (and frequently sweetly funny with the lovers' DIY approach to S&M), even - or especially, perhaps - in its more extreme moments, all of which handled beautifully by the two non-professional leads. The pared-down visual style gives the movie an edge and intensity, as if you're watching real people in a documentary rather than a fiction film. The movie's English title is explained in the shattering last line. It would sound glib to call this a REALM OF THE SENSES for millennium's end but that's the comparison that comes to mind.

They may say I'm wrong, but, in my own judge, the main difference between erotic cinema and pornography is that the first one has a concept behind it, with well thought camera and decoration management; while the second one is plainly sex in front of a camera, and may god take care of the rest. Other interesting difference is that while this last one every scene involving a dialogue or that stands between a sex scene and another is just in the way; in the other one there is an equitable handling of the events, in which the happening of the characters actually affects -in a way or another- the plot development, taking special care on the verosimilitude of this one. In the case of Gojitmal, we are introduced into a typical story in this class of movies: A couple -a young student and an adult man- gets in contact in the distance and decides to get together to start a sexual relation that soon leads into the ways of the sadomasochism. The movie, that follows both the couple dates as well as other aspects of their lives, doesn't fall into the gratuity nor the monotony, in which many movies of this genre happen to fall; but plays with the cameras, has some interesting travelling and (spoiler?) there even is a fast-forward over an entire sex sequence to give place to the story. In the aesthetical plain, notice the predilection for environments in where there is almost none decoration, detail that give the scenes a more simplistic mood and allows to keep all attention on the couple (in contrast with the overwhelmed environments in the average porn, in which there is an attempt to give the characters a personality through the decoration, which in some cases manage to become stand alone archetypes, such as the sexy-intellectual girl, whose house has books everywhere and/or exotic statues on the walls and corners). Being a movie from the sex genre, and not being much of a fan of it myself, there is not such a great deal I may find on it, but I must accept it entertains and that it is well done. Keep a keen eye (actually a sharp ear) on the high-on-amphets hamsters on the soundtrack, without which the movie wouldn't be the same.

I just got back from seeing the new Korean film "Lies," a portrayal of a consensual BDSM relationship between an 18-year-old student and a 38-year-old sculptor.First, the bad stuff: it's not a very good movie. Amateurishly filmed, with shaky camera work and some of the weirdest directorial decisions I've ever seen. This is not "Last Tango In Paris" or anything like it.But if you can get past that, what's left at the core is one of the most sympathetic, honest and realistic portrayals I've ever seen of BDSM as it's actually played. The two types of players -- the sculptor is a primary sadomasochist, whose needs for BDSM play are strong, innate and non-situation-dependent; the student is a secondary sadomasochist, who derives her enjoyment of BDSM from her partner's reaction -- are accurately and sympathetically portrayed. Consent is scrupulously observed, with plenty of check-ins and other good communciation. The emotional reactions to play are dead-on. The bad things that happen in the movie take place because of outside intervention by the vanilla world, not because there's anything wrong or sick about the couple themselves.As far as I could tell, most of the scenes of BDSM play were real, not staged or faked -- and they're intense. Switchings, canings, paddlings -- with lingering camera shots afterwards of welts and bruises. (One scat play scene was apparently faked, which was OK by me - shudder.) Some of the play was not up to community standards of safe technique; a shot of a garden hose thudding down right across the woman's kidneys had me cringing. But it also seemed true to what might happen in a culture which provides no information or support for its kinkyfolk.Well worth seeing in a theater if you live in an urban center where it's showing, or adding to your video collection later on if you can find it.

...but this South Korean hunk of porn with pretensions was. The account of an S&M relationship between a schoolgirl and a dirty old man, LIES keeps making feints at art-movieness that suggest the silly "socially redeeming" side of stuff like I AM CURIOUS YELLOW. (In one particularly embarrassing conceit, the non-actors playing the leads discuss their discomfort at doing sex scenes.Ah, the Brechtianness of it all!) To think that crap like Catherine Breillat's ROMANCE and this monstrosity get shown in America's arthouses, while the latest Bela Tarr, Godard and Hou are sitting on the shelf, is an injustice of Katherine Harris proportions.