Kim Ki-duk Day *

* (restored/expanded)

 

‘Kim Ki-Duk (1960-2020) is the bad boy of South Korean cinema, an upstart who didn’t attend film school or serve an apprenticeship with an established director, the usual routes to helming your own picture. To hear Kim Ki-Duk tell it, he wrote a screenplay that a producer wanted desperately to buy. Kim held out, asking to direct. The producer resisted, but Kim held his ground. Eventually, he got his way. In 1996, his first feature was released. Crocodile was the tale of a man who recovers the bodies of suicides in the Han River, which runs through Seoul.

‘In the years since, Kim hasn’t wasted any time. His 10th film, Samaritan Girl, debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival, winning him a best director prize. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring, his ninth film, was his first to be released commercially in the U.S. outside of New York City. It’s a contemplative parable about the link between suffering and desire, between atonement and enlightenment. Its setting is a small Buddhist temple floating in the middle of a remote mountain lake. The film’s mood of tranquillity and philosophical rumination is hardly what this director is known for.

‘Kim’s other recent films, Bad Guy and Samaritan Girl, are more naked in their examination of life’s darker sides — both revolve around prostitution, violent beatings and bloody deaths. In South Korea, Kim’s films have drifted from art house fare to commercial success, with Bad Guy a hit in 2002. In that film, a small-time gangster forces a young girl into prostitution; he becomes obsessed with her and she in turn begins to form an attachment to him. Samaritan Girl follows two schoolgirls who decide to run a prostitution scam, until one dies tragically and the other decides to “pay back” her johns as an act of remorse.

‘Kim, 43, is soft-spoken, a small, compact man with closely cropped hairand a soft voice. He continually doodles, writing bits of questions posed and of responses readied on a Korean newspaper, which he repeatedly folds this way and that to find additional blank spaces. Born to a family of farmers in a South Korean village, Kim got his only formal education at a primary school, one run by missionaries. Although this made him Christian for many years, these days, he admits, “I have my doubts.” He spent five years in the South Korean equivalent of the Marine Corps — getting in even though he had been rejected by the Army when he failed a psychological test.

‘”I thought it was unfair so I volunteered for the Marine Corps,” he says. “I made an effort and I got in.” Unfortunately, this bit of bravado turned into a trauma that troubles him to this day. “What I gained was physical power, and what I lost was my mind,” he says. “I’m still suffering from my memories of the Marine Corps service — the violence, the hierarchy.”

‘It was in France, he says, that he saw his first movie. His first movie? Well, he did watch some religion-themed movies in missionary school, but he hardly remembers. What he does remember, however, was walking into a French cinema and seeing The Silence of the Lambs. Despite the fact that he couldn’t understand the French into which it had been dubbed, he could follow the story. Most of all he was transfixed by the images and the audio.

‘”I was watching the pictures and listening to the sounds,” he says. To this day, that is what films are to him, series of images and sounds, and he likes to keep speech to a minimum. “I don’t like movies with lots of dialogue.” Thus inspired, he says, “I started to write scripts after I came back from France.” One was selected in a government-sponsored competition, another fell into the hands of an architect who wanted to produce films. After some wrangling, this man eventually gave him his first chance. Kim says that he already understood lighting, composition and angles from being a painter; the rest of it he learned by doing.’ — collaged

 

___
Stills

 

_____
Further

Kim Ki-duk @ IMDb
The Kim Ki-duk Page
Kim Ki-duk’s Movies Blog
KK-d @ mubi
KK-d Facebook page
‘The strange case of director Kim Ki-Duk’
‘Kim Ki-duk Seeks Industry Vote on Moebius‘
‘The Wordless Beauty and Brutality of Kim Ki-duk’s Moebius‘
‘Lunch with director Kim Ki-duk. . . sort of’
‘The History of Cinema. Kim Ki-Duk’
‘TIFF Day 10: Pieta x 13’
KK-d interviewed @ Filmmaker Magazine
‘Master from Orient KIM KI-DUK’
‘Cruel Beauty: The Cinema of Kim Ki-Duk’

 

____
Extras

Venezia 70 Future Reloaded – Kim Ki-duk

Four delegates fainted while watching Kim Ki Duk’s “Moebius”

“Amen…” A Short Movie Directed By Kim Ki-duk

Interview with Kim Ki-duk

Remembering Kim Ki Duk

 

_______
Interview

 

Your films deal with very extreme emotions, often times equal parts love and hatred and the similarities between the two. Where does the inspiration for making films that deal with this material come from? What drives you as a filmmaker?

Kim Ki-Duk: I believe that every person has multiple feelings. A person’s current personality of love, hatred, jealousy, rage or a murderous intent and so on is formed upon genetic elements, education, the environment and a family a person grows in.

The source of my movie comes from a theory “The white color and the black color is the same.” I try not to interpret things of the world into a single meaning. Rather, I try the opposite. For example, a man, who fights too often and too well, does so, not because he’s good at it but because he is scared.

Your films are also known for their minimal amounts of dialogue, yet you’re still able to portray so much through your movies without the need for a lot of words. Why is it that your characters are so often so quiet?

KK-D: I don’t think that the spoken words solve everything. Sometimes silence delivers truer feelings while the words can distort the meaning in some situations.

Your films often times deal with outcasts, people who don’t fit into the norms of society – like the central character in 3-Iron or the prostitute in Bad Guy. Why the focus on more unfortunate characters?

KK-D: They should be respected as one of the contemporaries. Even though they are unhappy, it is wrong for us to judge them as unhappy. I wanted to show their frank lives through my movies.

Which of your films do you feel the most proud of and why is it that you choose that one?

KK-D: There’s none I feel proud of. The movies I will make in the future are the ones I take pride in, because they will contain the consciousness that I am not aware of yet. I am curious – with what kind of idea and thought I will live. But if you insist to pick one, I’d like to recommend Address Unknown to the American viewers. I want American youngsters to see how a youth in a third world lives.

How do you feel about film critics who think your work is too violent or too exploitative? Or towards people who feel your work is sexist and misogynistic?

KK-D: I think that is possible. They have different background and education from mine which naturally led them to interpret my movie differently. But the critics become careful now that I am internationally recognized and have won several awards. I guess they are looking back their own thoughts. I hope their point of view changes from seeing only a single thing to observing multiple stuffs, but they will need some time.

 

______________________
17 of Kim Ki-duk’s 21 films

________
Crocodile (1996)
‘Crocodile is a 1996 South Korean film. It was the directorial debut of Ki-duk Kim and stars Cho Jae-hyun as “Crocodile”. The film tells the story of a man living at the edge of the Han River in Seoul, who saves a woman trying to commit suicide. He then proceeds to rape and abuse her until an odd relationship develops between them.’ — collaged


Trailer

Excerpt

 

_______
Wild Animal Reservation Zone (1997)
‘Kim Ki-duk wrote and directed this allegorical South Korean drama about Korean expatriates on the edge of the Paris art world. The original title translates as “Wild Animal Reservation Zone.” Artistically inclined hustler Chong-Hae (Cho Jae-hyun) and his pal Hong-san (Jang Dong-jik) sign on as henchmen for a French gangster (Richard Bohringer). Hong-san and Chong-Hae both get involved with women under the thumbs of oppressive Frenchmen. While Hong-San is drawn into the milieu of a stripper, Chong-Hae takes a fancy to a Korean artist. Inspired by Camille Claudel, the talented sculptress portrayed by Isabelle Adjani in Bruno Nuytten’s award-winning Camille Claudel (1988), the Korean performance artist paints herself white and then stands nude in various Paris public squares. After she stabs her French oppressor with a frozen fish, more violence erupts. The film’s soundtrack mixes Korean pop music with Arabic rhythms.’ — Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Excerpt

 

__________
Birdcage Inn (1998)
‘Birdcage Inn is the third film of Kim Ki-duk, who probably ranks as the Korean director with the most conflicted reputation. Although it was Kim’s first film which managed to attract international attention, it was a major failure at the box-office in Korea itself. The story centers on a 24-year-old woman named Jin-a, who comes to a shabby guesthouse named Birdcage Inn to replace a prostitute who previously worked there. (Some spoilers to follow…) A couple with two children in their late teens run the lodge, located in a small village right in front of the ocean. The situation of Jin-a is complicated in many ways. Not only does her pimp force her into prostitution, but the family she lives with also gives her a hard time. The daughter discriminates against the young girl because of her social background, the mother only sees her as a source of capital, the silent father rapes her and the son, last but not least, tries to lose his virginity with her.’ — koreanfilm.org

Excerpt

the entire film

 

_______
The Isle (2000)
‘The Isle is a 2000 South Korean film written and directed by Kim Ki-duk. The film was the fifth film made by Kim, and the first to receive wider international acclaim for his recognizable style. It also became notorious for being difficult to watch, with stories of viewers vomiting or passing out during the more gruesome scenes when the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert, having seen the film at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, praised the film for its cinematography, while commenting “This is the most gruesome and quease-inducing film you are likely to have seen. You may not even want to read the descriptions in this review.”‘ — collaged

Watch the film here

 

______
Bad Guy (2001)
‘Bad Guy, from 2001, is extremely powerful and clearly lays the roots for a lot of Ki-duk’s later work, dealing with one of his favorite themes, prostitution.The scees where Han-ki watches Sun-hwa through the two way mirror are absolutely phenomenal. The black void lighting, only broken by the embers of a burning cigarette, his face reflected in the mirror, watching Sun-Hwa’s gradual degredation. I love the way Kim’s frame create multiple planes of action. You can watch Han-Ki’s face and the action with Sun-hwa simultaneously, in the same way that a number of scenes with Han and his crew are set so that we can see Sun and her crew soliciting customers in the background, two stories happening at once.’ — Thoughts on Stuff

Trailer

The Making of ‘Bad Guy’

 

____________
Samaritan Girl (2004)
‘Yeo-jin and Jae-yeong are two teenage girls who are trying to earn money for a trip to Europe. To reach this end, Jae-yeong is prostituting herself while Yeo-jin acts as her pimp, setting her up with the clients and staying on guard for the police. Things take a turn for the worse when Yeo-jin gets distracted from her duty and the police raid the motel where Jae-yeong is meeting with a client. To avoid getting caught, Jae-yeong jumps out of a window, fatally injuring herself. After Jae-yeong’s death, Yeo-jin blames herself and to ease her own conscience, sets to return all of the money they earned to the clients while sleeping with them herself. Eventually Yeo-jin’s father, a policeman, is devastated when he discovers what she is doing. He starts following her discreetly and confronts her clients with increasingly violent results. Finally, he ends up brutally killing a client.’ — collaged

Trailer

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

____
3-Iron (2004)
‘3-Iron sees Kim softening his bleak view of humanity somewhat, and removing some of the incredible viciousness which made many of his earlier works rather unpalatable for those with weaker stomachs. Although 3-Iron is still very much concerned with emotional isolation and in this case a desire to fade from the world, the director injects a sense of surrealist whimsy. Also, despite themes of domestic violence and societal control, Kim works in a number of surprisingly gentle and beautiful moments. The end result is an almost ethereal, yet truly captivating film which is fascinating and moving, and which stands amongst Kim’s finest, yet again confirming that he is one of the most talented and insightful directors working in the profession today.’ — Beyond Hollywood

Excerpt

Watch the film here

 

_____
The Bow (2005)
‘A 60-year-old man has lived with a 16-year-old girl on a boat afloat in the middle of the sea for 10 years. The old man crosses days off of a calendar and counts the remaining days to her 17th birthday. She is content with her life, helping the old man serve the fishermen who come to the boat. When a gentle college boy comes aboard to fish, their relationship begins to suffer. As she becomes more and more attracted to the boy, she begins to distance herself from the old man, arousing his jealousy. Much like other movies by Kim Ki-duk the film contains very little dialogue.’ — Han Cinema

Trailer

Excerpt

 

______
Time (2006)
‘Breaking with his formal rule of silence, Kim Ki-Duk has conceded here an unusual amount of room for the dialogues. But if speech is regained, there is still a sense of loss (of meaning, of consistency) in the dramatic scenes, which paradoxically accentuates their impact. The loss tightens the action and exacerbates the expressions of the couple, who oscillate, outside psychological norms, in the narrow margin between desperation and theatrical hysteria (not a word one should use lightly when speaking about a director accused of being “outrageously misogynistic”), causing as much violence to each other as they do to themselves. As Seh-Hee feels she failed to be accepted for what she is (“”the same boring face,” she dejectedly says to her lover) , she has this very face cut into another’s, in an intensely clinical and critical moment when her flesh becomes a malleable mask, artistic material for the recreation of her self.’ — The Korea Film Society

Trailer

The Making of ‘Time’

 

_________
Arirang (2011)
‘Arirang addresses a personal crisis Kim went through, sparked by an incident during the filming of his previous film, Dream, where the lead actress nearly died by hanging, and by the departure of a couple of close colleagues, including the director Jang Hoon. The title comes from a Korean folk song with the same title. In a heavily line-broken text released about the film, Kim writes that “Through Arirang I understand human beings, thank the nature, and accept my life as it is now.”[1] Kim produced the film entirely on his own. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and won the top award for best film.’ — collaged

Trailer

Kim Ki-Duk sings ‘Arirang’

 

_________
Pieta (2012)
‘Pietà is the 18th feature written and directed by Kim Ki-duk. It depicts the mysterious relationship between a brutal man who works for loan sharks and a middle-aged woman who claims that she is his mother, mixing Christian symbolism and highly sexual content. The film won the Golden Lion prize at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. At its Venice press screening, it reportedly “elicited extremely mixed reactions”. Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter described it as “an intense and, for the first hour, sickeningly violent film that unexpectedly segues into a moving psychological study.” Young gave high praises to the film’s acting performances, however states “it’s not an exaggeration to say there’s not a single pleasant moment in the film’s first half” and “Viewers will keep their eyes closed” for the majority of the film.”‘ — collaged

Trailer

PIETA Q&A; with Kim Ki-duk at AFI FEST

 

___________
Moebius (2013)
‘After narrowly missing the Busan screening of the controversial and censorship loathed new film from master filmmaker Kim Ki Duk, I wasn’t going to miss the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival leg of Moebius. What can I say about this film? Let’s start of by a few descriptive words, namely disturbing, twisted, unbelievable, fascinating, frustrating and incestuous. Believe me, Kim Ki Duk have made some strange films, dealing with difficult and often controversial subjects (i.e. Pieta), but in Moebius, he goes further and beyond even himself. From the opening scene of a moebius wife who is mentally ill from her husband infidelity, fails to cut his penis and instead turn her attention to their son and quite frankly and literally chop off his penis. To call Moebius daring is actually an understatement, as it is more than that, it is a film that will haunt you, lingers with you and perhaps disturb you till you never think about it again.’ — HK Neo Reviews

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

____________
One on One (2014)
‘“Who am I?” is the question posed in the first closing credit of “One on One,” as if the preceding two hours of screeching melodrama and stomach-churning, rusty nail-assisted violence could have been the work of anyone but Kim Ki-duk. Even fierce admirers of the prolific South Korean provocateur, however, would struggle to suggest that he’s in top form in this turgid, rushed-looking revenge tale, in which the perpetrators of a schoolgirl’s senseless murder are methodically singled out for punishment of the grisliest variety. A significant step down from the more engaging grotesquerie of last year’s bonkers incest drama “Moebius,” this year’s Venice Days opener may struggle to match even the limited level of distributor interest in Kim’s recent work.’ — Variety

Trailer

 

__________
Stop (2015)
‘Once again, Kim Ki-duk has shot, edited, produced and written his film, only this time it is set in Japan using entirely Japanese dialogue. His touch can still be felt everywhere, as is evident in the film’s handheld cinematography and editing, which feels very rough around the edges – emblematic of much of Kim’s work. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Kim has never received any formal training in filmmaking, but his raw aesthetic is also due to the fact that he tends to shoot his films in just a few weeks or even less on a very limited budget. Kim’s films have until more recently used minimal dialogue, as evident in Moebius, where no dialogue is spoken reflecting his intent of telling a story entirely through visuals without resorting to speech. But to reverse his style in such a way as his films become less complex and more argument-driven undermines one of the traits that made his earlier films rather compelling. The points Kim Ki-duk attempts to address are relatively simple: no to nuclear power and reduce our dependence on electricity and he uses this story in putting his argument across, which is aimed at Japanese, Korean and international viewers alike. But beyond this, there’s little in the way of depth to really entice audiences.’ — Screen Daily

the entire film

 

___________
The Net (2016)
‘Kim Ki-duk’s career has often progressed in distinct waves – from the nasty sexual violence of his dark early work to the magical realism that produced Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring and 3-Iron. Since the glorious grotesquery of 2013’s Moebius, he’s perhaps made a move into territory that nobody could have expected from a perennially bold provocateur, one of conformity and restraint. Both One on One and Stop were flawed but conventional thrillers, albeit with distinct political motivations, and the same is true of his slightly more successful new film The Net. The visuals are around the same level as One on One – a far cry from the almost unwatchable ugliness of Pieta, for instance – but it’s not Kim or his composition that are the star of this show. As Chul-woo Ryoo Seung-bum is irresistibly endearing and empathetic, not least when he scrunches his eyes closed in the car so that he won’t have seen any of South Korea when he’s questioned by the military back home. Ryoo perfectly embodies the everyman who finds himself the victim and pawn and it’s his charisma that maintains the tragedy of the situation despite The Net overshooting by almost half an hour. The fact that what is going on around him is delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer is Kim’s current forte – but it still manages to be effective.’ — Cine-Vue

Trailer

 

_____________
Human, Space, Time and Human (2018)
‘The title is in the form of a loop, as is the storyline itself. Kim Ki-duk has produced a work that is virtually biblical in scope, and whose main character is called Eve. Men, women, and gangsters take their places aboard a floating vessel. An old man tirelessly picks up dirt from the ground. Very quickly, one act of violence follows another: the weakest are murdered and the women are attacked and raped. Far from focusing on this terrible chaos, the director seems bent on telling a story of rebirth, painful reconstruction and hope. A provocative shock movie, Human, Space, Time and Human is a parable that will leave no one indifferent.’ — FEFFS

Trailer

Excerpt

 

_____________
Dissolve (2019)
‘I never thought I’d land a copy of Kim Ki-duk’s final film. It was shot in Kazakhstan and to my knowledge never had a formal release, and premiered I believe only at the Cannes Film Market to about 20 buyers who had an official invitation under a “Guest List Only” credential. The film is cheaply shot, amateurish, and digitally ugly, but when it comes to Kim’s films, I’ve always been more enthralled by how strange and symbolic they are. His final poem, while easily one of his weakest, still undeniably lifts you into that mystical, semi-abstract world that he spent 25 years building.’ — Brandon Habes

Trailer

 

_____________
w/ Artur Veeber Call Of God (2022)
‘After a lifetime spent creating outrage and offence, both on and off screen, Korean master Kim Ki-duk has left the world with this final film, finished by his friends after his death. The story of a passionate affair that curdles almost immediately into jealousy and hate – but ends on a lyrically wistful note – is a startlingly appropriate rogue’s epitaph. Call of God was shot in Kyrgyzstan, Estonia and Latvia in 2019. Kim died of complications from Covid in late 2020 at age 59; the film was assembled by Artur Veeber, his Estonia-based producer. Sexual manipulation, seething violence, spiritual yearning and the consoling beauty of the natural world – all the signal elements of his work since his debut with Crocodile in 1996 – are here. It is a minor film but, like everything he made, distinctively his.’ — Stephanie Bunbury

Trailer

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I think they must google that stuff, right? I think everything’s determined by algorithms? I don’t know why google thinks I care though because I so do not care. Love has no use whatsoever for Elton John, so he would happily erase him from the very beginning, but love knows there are a lot of people who do like him, so he’s willing to compromise and erase Elton John starting after the release of his ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album, but know that is a great sacrifice on love’s part. Love executing a perfect fouette, G. ** Lucas, Hi, L! Ditto, ditto. I’m guessing you’re home or on the bus, probably home. Enjoy all that greenery. Happy news, or potentially, about your convinced friend. I might even go. More collages, yay! Hm, I’m not fully awake yet, but I’ll hunt my mind for things that seem very ‘you’. Oh, thank you for the link! That does look really, really interesting. I’ll seek more. Love back to you with lots of curly-q’s. ** _Black_Acrylic, Knowing you, you will both devour and develop it. ** Malik, Hi. Yeah, yeah, total score on the artists for me. Family in attendance! The big time. I’m always very stressed when I have to do a reading, for instance, but then when I’m actually at the podium, it’s fine, so I bet you’ll have something similar. Only a few days now. I sure hope my ‘Flunker(s)’ have shipped. It’s almost your birthday? I’ll start psyching myself up to wish you the deserved happiness. ** Tosh Berman, You have ‘Flunker’ too? Jesus. Well, I am way over in France, okay. I hope it tickles you, as my grandma used to say. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! Fuck knows about translations. I’m a prisoner. Wow, that does sound like a dramatic shoot. Good luck with that actor+ dude. No matter what, I’m sure he’ll be a piece of cake compared to our producer. Awesome, congrats, on the festive acceptance. Excited to hear. We’re waiting on two big festivals ourselves, so I’ll hope your luck is contagious. I started ‘The Mad Man’, butI gave up on it. I think I was expecting/hoping for something akin to ‘Hogg’, which it wasn’t. I should try it again. But, yeah, at the time, it didn’t do enough for me. Again, happy for your great news, and mega-luck with the edit, etc. ** Huckleberry Shelf, Hi, Huckleberry! A true pleasure to see you! Such a good novel, yeah. He’s so great. Very addictive, that guy. I hope you like ‘Flunker’, of course, and I hope mine arrives soon because right now it’s like when you’re in a dream and you suddenly realise you’re naked. I’m very happy you liked ‘Margaret Kroftis’. I highly recommend all of Mark Gluth’s novels. If you liked that one, I’m sure you’ll like his later ones. Thanks so much! I hope your writing and life are going splendidly! Take good care. ** A, Hey, dude. I’m happy you’ve gotten your writing time and impulse sorted, of course. Mm, almost no chance I’ll be in LA in July. I’m sort of held hostage here until the film is finished, which will then occasion the next LA trip, i.e. the cast snd crew screening. Things with, or, rather, around the film, are total hell at the moment. But where there’s will, there’s a … whatever. Thanks for alerting Bret to the film. He might even like it maybe. Yes, I saw an email from Filip, and I need to write back to him. My emailing skills are as terrible as ever. I will. Keep your head above summer, man. ** Harper, Hi!!! Oh, don’t get me started on Disneyland. I’m kind of a fanatic, but, yes, you should go. Ideally to the LA one, which is so much greater than the Florida one. The Paris one isn’t bad. I do know that about Wernher Von Braun, and do you know why? Because my dad was close friends with him. And proud of that fact, which tells you something about my dad. Most of the rumors are so not true. I wish, but, nah. There are some secrets behind the scenes, but they almost never get out into the public. I know scoop because my childhood best friend’s aunt was a higher up at Disneyland in the early days, and she regaled us with her secrets. Bernhard is a writer to read, for sure. One of the greats, if you ask me. And ‘The Loser’ is a good place to start. Happy day! How’s the new locale sitting with you? ** politekid, Sire, Oscar. I think it would’ve been a pretty good CD-rom game. I should dig out my plans. I hope I didn’t lose them. Those were glory days for games because they were puzzle-centric since the tech was too primitive to build convincing actions and fighting. Sigh. I suppose it’s the notoriously ugh French postal service that’s keep my ‘Flunkers’ at bay. Maybe today? Thank you a lot so far, pal. You sound good. Cultural days are the best days. Wow, a live ‘Spirted Away’. Huh, Why not? It probably won’t come there. But if it does … I of course implore you, or rather the mechanisms inside you, to veer you towards the big fiction. My fictional wheels are stuck too. Maybe it’s the world’s fault. I’m okay, but, yeah, the film situation is truly awful right now. Other than that, I’ve seen some okay art, a couple of good films, friends, but the gloom and stasis are kind of eating me. Oh, if you didn’t see, Steve said this to you: ‘@politekid–CHIME has indeed leaked. It’s available to download via worldscinema.org, although you need a paid Nitroflare membership.’ I love being able to use language in a clear and precise manner too. It’s one of life’ great joys, and so hard to do when you’re from LA. Love to you, buddy. ** Billy, Hi, Billy! Thanks a lot! And it’s even that rare X account that seems to be letting the non-X public actually look at it. It looks exciting. I’ll scroll and scroll today. Hope all’s super great with you. ** Steve, Another ‘Flunker’ handler. I really am the last to know. I remember there being a few other pretty good songs on ‘Bona Drag’, but I haven’t listened to it a long time. Why not extend the track? I don’t know, why not? There were troubles with ‘Cattle’, but nothing remotely on this level. ‘PGL’ was a relative breeze. Really, the huge, ongoing problems we’ve had with ‘RT’ can be boiled down to the fact that our producer of going on 7 years is a lying, incompetent, lazy, sociopathic, destructive, narcissistic, delusional individual who turns everything he touches into a disaster and who we are very tragically entangled with financially and legally. Making this film has been a process of trying to survive him, and, without going into details because I can’t, we are at the lowest point yet at the moment. We are desperately hoping that one of the two big festivals we’ve submitted to accepts the film, because that will force the powers-that-be to let us finish the film and finally unleash it into the world from its current captivity. If both reject the film, I don’t know what we’re going to do because these particular festivals are probably our best shot. Anyway, there you go, haha. ** Don Waters, It’s a goody, man. And not even very lengthy. I think I’ve only read ‘The Adversary’. Carrere is a huge deal here. We share a publisher. I know him a little. He’s notoriously a pretty complicated guy, but I like him, from afar-ish at least. $10 to see the undoubtedly non-existent video of you lip-syncing ‘Last…’ . Oh my god. That’s a hard one to visualise. ** Justin D, Well, I am happy that there’s at least one other person who doesn’t have ‘Flunker’ yet, although I’m sorry it’s you, although it’s not like it’s the lottery winnings or something. I can’t see a reason to not add those solar panels, no. You guys do get beaucoup sun down there. I think the gardener tit-for-tat is totally fair. I’m sure your bf owes you one. ** Charalampos, Hi. I’ve done a few ‘Flunker’ interviews, and I’m going to be on a podcast talking about it. I did see but not read about the Ariana Grande thing. People respond to the world in crisis in such ridiculous ways. Well, is there any reason not to start working on ‘GIRL’ now? I will be forced to join Instagram any month now. So friend me or whatever people do there once I have. ** nat, Bernhard’s great, seriously. And kind of the exact polar opposite of McCourt. Western Norway, yes. I traveled a bit there. My friend the artist Kier Cooke Sandvik is originally from that area. Maybe you know them? I think seeing cruise ships would be magical. I almost wish one would forage its way up the Seine except that it would turn all the beautiful old bridges into dust, so never mind. Zac and I drove from Oslo to Stavanger on a road trip, and it was most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Well, maybe tied with parts of Iceland and the Antarctic. When you only really know the West and East coasts of the US, the Midwest is kinda of novel looking. ** Jacob, Hi, Jacob. I like Genet translations, but, then again, I have no comparison, so what do I know? Oh, I’ll look for your email. I’m bad with email, but now that you’ve alerted me, I’ll be good. Later this week should be fine and dandy. Talk soon then! ** Okay. The blog’s very old Kim Ki-duk post was in bad shape technically and way out of date, not to mention that he died of Covid since its initial appearance here, so I decided to restore and bring it up to date. That’s it. See you tomorrow.