This is going to be more of a serious critique than humorous commentary.
Oasis is a 2002 South Korean film about a man recently released from prison who forms a relationship with a woman with cerebral palsy.
Roger Ebert describes new South Korean cinema as "transgressive and disturbing", with "extreme characters"
I argue that Oasis works as a deconstruction of the inspiration porn genre because it takes the structure of a typical inspiration porn but alienates the audience from the characters and story,
Yes, I used the word "deconstruction" unironically.
Spoilers for Oasis, even though there is only one real twist and it isn't exactly crucial to the story.
I'm going to use Me Before You (2016) as an example of the typical inspiration porn. I designed a structure:
1. Able-bodied Character has some dissatisfaction in life
2. Able-bodied Character meets Disabled Character and there is a stark contrast
3. Characters have an initial negative interaction.
4 Disabled Character relates to Able-bodied Character.
5. Characters bond and grow relationship
6. Third Act Low Point where the Characters fight
7. Something Bad Happens to Disabled Character.
8. Characters Forgive Each Other, Some lesson is learned.
9. Disabled Character Dies.
10. Able-bodied Character changes
But, first I want to talk about the music. The music choices in both movies indicate the philosophies behind the movies. Me Before You used pop songs with lyrics that explicitly described the intended mood. Examples include:
- Till The End
- Don t Forget About Me
- Happy With Me
Oasis has no non-diagetic music except a dream sequence. The only song with lyrics is when a character sings karaoke. I personally felt like the lack of music prevented me from fully engaging with movie, which made it much more effective.
1. Able-bodied Character has some dissatisfaction in life
Oasis begins with the main character, Jong-du Hong, wandering around the city asking strangers inappropriate questions. He gets arrested when he eats a restaurant without paying, and the police reveal that he has a criminal record of assault, attempted sexual assault, and manslaughter from drunk driving. He was just released from prison. His brother is at the station, and he reluctantly picks him up, as the family was attempting to hide from Jong-du. Jong-du's brother tells him to grow up and gets him a job delivering food.
Jong-du as a main character is extremely alienating. We know that he is a criminal, and he does socially unacceptable things such as eating a block of raw tofu at a store. He uses his money to buy a coat for his mother, but doesn't wear it himself despite the cold. His parents move and change their phone number. The only motivation I can think of is external; his brother telling him to fit in with society.
But Jong-du doesn't seem to even want this. Not giving Jong-du a strong motivation helped me see the story from a more impartial perspective.
Louisa Clark's motivation changes from money to caring about Will when she learns that her job is to convince Will not to commit suicide. She takes time outside of her paid hours to research things to do. I believe that the Clark's obvious motivations are key to making Me Before You into inspiration porn. The audience is supposed to identify with Clark and thus react to Will as she does.
2. Able-bodied Character meets Disabled Character and there is a stark contrast
Jong-du meets Gong-ju while he makes his most socially inappropriate motion- giving a gift basket of fruit to the family of the man he has killed. Both characters are outcasts; Jong-du for his social mannerisms and Gong-ju for her physical disability.
Louisa Clark meets Will Trainer after accepting the job to take care of him. Louisa Clark is poor and optimistic about life. Will Trainer is wealthy and pessimistic.
Will's family does everything they can to help him, to the point of euthanasia.
Gong-ju's family exploits her. They have friends who illegitimately rent an apartment for disabled people in her name. She has to go there whenever the landlords do an inspection.
I believe that Oasis's choice of two outcasts, for different reasons, makes the eventual relationship more realistic yet shallow. Oasis made me recognize that most inspiration porn fail because they try to craft a deep relationship in a limited time frame. In Me Before You, the relationship jumps from "obligatory" to "real" around the time Will tells Louisa to explore life. In Oasis, the relationship never rises above fetishistic aspects of each character.
3. Characters Have A Negative Interaction
The second time Jong-du is alone with Gong-ju, he tries to communicate with her, and then sexually assaults her. Remember that Jong-du has a previous conviction of attempted sexual assault. This is important because it made me realise that the audience isn't "supposed" to identify with the characters or want them to change. It's just a brutal story that follows the beats of inspiration porn.
Louisa and Will have negative interactions because Will knows that his parents are using Louisa to convince him to not commit euthanasia, and Louisa is experiencing ingratitude.
4 Disabled Character relates to Able-bodied Character.
After the sexual assault, Gong-ju manages to call Jong-du (he left his number) and invites him over. This is the first time Gong-ju talks. Jong-du is descended from a General and Gong-ju means princess. Jong-du lies and says that he works in his brother's auto-shop. This relationship is built entirely on pity/envy. Gong-ju explicitly states this.
Jong-du takes Gong-ju outside against her family's wishes. He does sort of show remorse for the sexual assault, as he asks a pastor to pray for him. Then he gets a job in his brother's auto-shop, purely for Gong-ju. Note that this is the opposite of the beginning, when his brother forced him to get a job delivering food.
Gong-ju uses a mirror to reflect light. When she first meet Jong-du, she accidently throws the mirror and it shatters. Now the reflection is fragmented and it turns into butterflies, symbolizing how she views Jong-du as freedom from her isolated life.
5. Characters bond and grow relationship.
The brilliance of Oasis is that it uses extreme situations (sexual assault, abandonment) to demonstrate that the relationship in this "inspiration porn" is abusive but doesn't comment on it. Jong-du uses Gong-ju to craft his own life story, claiming to be in the military instead of jail. Gong-ju asks Jong-du about life outside to live through him.
The titular Oasis is a painting in Gong-ju's house, representing Gong-Ju as Jong-du's Oasis from society, where he is an outcast. The trees outside form a shadow over the painting, indicating that outside society makes them and outcast, and Jong-du uses his "magic" to make the shadow go away, the "magic" being their relationship.
There are fantasy scenes where Gong-ju gets up and walks. These amazed me, because So-ri Moon plays Gong-ju so well that I was sure she had CP. This is why I think able-bodied actors can play disabled characters convincingly.
The relationship in Me Before You is just as shallow as the one in Oasis, but Me Before You manipulates the audience into thinking that the relationship means something.
6. Third Act Low Point where the Characters fight
Jong-du brings Gong-ju to his mother's birthday dinner, despite neither of them being invited. He casually mentions that she's the daughter of the man he killed and we learn the truth; Jong-du's brother was the driver who killed the man and Jong-du took the blame and went to prison for him because his brother had a family to support.
When they get back to Gong-ju's apartment, they have sex. Gong-ju's family comes back and assume Jong-du broke in and assaulted her.
While typical inspiration porn paints most characters sympathetically and a few as unlikable, Oasis goes out of it's way to make everyone unsympathetic except for Gong-ju, who is entirely passive.
Ebert said that this is the "Idiot Plot", because this whole scene could have been resolved with a simple explanation. I disagree. Who would have believed Jong-du, especially with a prior conviction of attempted rape? Gong-ju attempts to communicate with people, but can't.
Gong-ju and Jong-du never fight with each other. In the third act, both are separated due to the accused sexual assault.
In Me Before You, the fight occurs on a beach when Louisa yells at Will for wanting to kill himself despite everything she's done for him. This moment is melodramatic and comes out of nowhere. Despite the movie trying to make the audience sympathize with Will, I felt that Louisa had a good point about being manipulated.
7. Something Bad Happens to Disabled Character Medically.
8. Characters Forgive Each Other, Some lesson is learned.
9. Disabled Character Dies.
10. Able-bodied Character changes
This happens beat-by-beat in Me Before You. It ends with a voice over of Will's letter to Louisa, telling her to live life to the fullest.
Jong-du assaults a woman in street to get her phone and call Gong-ju's apartment. He climbs tree and saws off the limbs so there is no shadow over the Oasis painting and gets carted off to jail, where he was at the beginning of the movie.
Gong-ju is all alone, like she was in the beginning of the movie.
The movie ends with a voice-over of Jong-du's letter to Gong-ju from prison, saying he will buy her food when he is released.
This ending is why I believe Oasis subverts the entire inspiration porn genre. The crux of this genre is that the able-bodied character learns something from the tragedy of the disabled character. In Oasis, the able-bodied character learns nothing from the disabled character, and ends up in the same place as he started. The disabled character doesn't change much from her starting point.
Oasis is the counterpoint to the yearly release of generic inspiration porn. Speaking of which, I will do my real review of Midnight Sun (2018) next week,
My April Fool's blog post this year was my first serious post. That's a joke in and of itself.
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