I like dining tables and all, I thought snarkily before sauntering in to see this, but I'm not sure I want to watch a whole film about them. Because I'm a funny guy, you see. I come up with these sort of grade A gags even when no-one's around to share them, partly because my brain is always firing on all cylinders and partly because I'm desperately anti social. Sometimes I feel I want to break down and cry, nowhere to go, nothing to do with my life. It's so lonely, living on your own.
But I don't always recite Freddy Mercury lyrics. Sometimes I watch films. Like this one. And then I wish with all my heart that I hadn't watched them. Because they were a complete waste of time. Like this one.
If we're feeling generous, we could perhaps call The Last Dining Table, or Majimak babsang, a chronicle of the bleaker side of Korea's society. We're presented with a series of vignettes of the lives of a few people, with dialogue kept minimalist to the point of vanishing completely. I'd recount the characters, but in truth so little happens to them that I'd only be wasting your time and my own.
Quite what the 'shocking ending' the PR blurb speaks of is supposed to be I can't quite grasp, as he only way for it to possibly be 'shocking' rather than 'meaninglessly coincidental' requires a substantial inferment, if such a word exists, that simply cannot be supported by the rest of the film. So, not a shocking conclusion then, but a termination. Perhaps euthanasia is a more appropriate term. Certainly I was glad for it to be put out of my misery.
It seems like only a few days ago I was whining like a little girl about how dull La Soledad was. Now I can whine about how dull it is to be repeating a review about how dull film this is, therefore making it a dull review and therefore the most accurate impression I can give as to how dull this film is. Woah! Very postmodern.
Here's the thing, so little happens during this abomination of a film that I attempted to cut my wrists using a press pass. While I managed with some effort to give myself a nasty scratch, there wasn't quite the release of lifeblood necessary to bring things to a grateful end. I could have walked out I guess, but the hypnotic effect of the on-screen tedium had sucked out the will to continue existing.
Not a glowing recommendation, then.
Were I in the business of passing quantifiable judgements, I'd award this 0/5 TippyMarks.
Suk-yeun Hong
Sun-bok Hwang
Do-yun Kim
Heung-ki Oh