Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, 2002)
For the last few years my Januaries have been mostly taken up by a mad scramble to see a heap of 2004-eligible titles before the deadline for the Skandies poll I participate in. The first title this year is Oasis, out on dvd, a South Korean film about the doomed romance between a mentally slow misfit and a woman with severe cerebral palsy. A Hollywood version of this story is simply too horrible to contemplate, but Lee approaches the material with a resonably hard-edged realism, and the performances, especially Moon So-ri’s, succesfully navigate even the obligatory cutesy fantasy sequences. If you’re succeptible to this sort of thing, you’ll fall hard. Unfortunately the ending employs a plot mechanic that I can’t stand, where an array of supporting characters, through callousness and tragic misunderstanding, brutally persecute our innocent heroes. I spent the last 30 minutes in constant frustration, wishing everyone would just sit down over tea and clear things up. 65
