Point of view (POV) is quite simply – who is telling the story? Or From what perspective is the story seen? The main difference between film POV and literature POV is that literature is narrated while film POV is shown.
Each POV trajectory affects meaning. And I love it when we’re given an unreliable narrator!
Each POV trajectory affects meaning. And I love it when we’re given an unreliable narrator!
When a storyteller plays around with our expectations of narrative, it’s usually for a desired effect. In Dead Friend, the POV is all over the place from the start. For a horror movie, this adds a layer of confusion that aids the tone. Before we see anything, we hear a voice in the darkness giving out warnings: “Pull yourselves together, otherwise the ghost might get into your bodies. It needs a body to live in. Here we go.” Eventually we hear one of the best taglines from any movie: “Don’t remember…take it to your grave.”
Done needlessly for eerie effect, this would harm the movie, but here it actually plays into the plot. So ‘who is telling this story?’ becomes a legitimate question because by the end we see our narrator isn’t even sure who she is. I know, confusing, but well worth the trip.
That’s what happens when you begin with a ghost possession...
followed by a girl with amnesia...
culminating in fractures of story pieced together by the audience and the protagonist trying to remember at the same time…
through multiple flashbacks…
underwater.
It’s a nice trick. Kind of like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness with a POV so obscure it’s tricked people for a long time into think it’s an interesting story. Just kidding, my old English Professors. JUST KIDDING!
That’s what happens when you begin with a ghost possession...
followed by a girl with amnesia...
culminating in fractures of story pieced together by the audience and the protagonist trying to remember at the same time…
through multiple flashbacks…
underwater.
It’s a nice trick. Kind of like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness with a POV so obscure it’s tricked people for a long time into think it’s an interesting story. Just kidding, my old English Professors. JUST KIDDING!
Other than the intentionally convoluted POV, this movie offers little that’s new ground for ghost movies. I mean we’ve learned by now that the scariest thing in the world is a crawly Asian girl with long, wet hair in her face. We got that back in ’98 with Ringu, and in ‘02 with Ju-on and Dark Water. We see it again in Dead Friend – there’s a lot going on with water as a symbol here.
The difference for me is before, I could shrug it off, but I live in Korea now surround by Asian girls with long hair. It’s starting to creep me out! I keep waiting for one to crawl out from my toothbrush or my pencil case or my bag of 새우강 chips, or from wherever the next one is destined to emerge. These girls are EVERYWHERE!
In Dead Friend, messing around with the POV is more than a gimmick. It works for the ending. Without diving into plot summary, imagine Mean Girls meets The Sixth Sense. Again, ghosts in a girls high school setting is not new ground for Korean cinema. This could very easily have been part of the Whispering Corridors franchise (which is scheduled for this blog in December…the whole franchise!), but it’s not. It is, however, a nice spooky thriller with an intriguing plot twist at the end. You kind of see it coming, but hats off to the storytellers for using POV to mix things up for the viewer in a way that’s effective and fun.
And for me, it’s always a treat to see Koreans fooling around with a Bunshinsaba, a Korean Ouija board…so cool (also another scary movie (분신사바 2004) I will be looking at January 7th 2015).
And for me, it’s always a treat to see Koreans fooling around with a Bunshinsaba, a Korean Ouija board…so cool (also another scary movie (분신사바 2004) I will be looking at January 7th 2015).
RSS Feed
