"301,302" this is a brief review of the korean film, it's brief because I didn't want to spoil anything. you can watch here on viki although it's not available in the uk anymore (idk about other countries).
Just a pre-warning, I’m not sure what the rating is on this but it deals with some pretty strong adult themes and sexual themes too. It would probably only be a rated 15 in the UK but just a heads up.
OK, So I just finished watching this and a good sign is that I immediately want to watch it again to understand the story more. Without giving too much away I was quite shocked and confused at the closing scene.
(I’m going to try my very best not to give any of the plot away…!!)
I love art house cinema and anything remotely disturbing so understandably I enjoyed this a lot.
The plot centres around two women who live opposite each other in an apartment (hence the name). 301 (Songhee) acts as protagonist, the story is told from her opinion, as a recently divorced chef who swallows much of her feeling with food and alternates between dieting and bingeing. 302 (Yoonhee) is the reclusive anorectic writer who avoids social contact and rejects 301’s offer of friendship at first, she goes missing and a detective arrives to talk to 301, hoping to find out about her whereabouts. The film opens in what seems like a standard missing person case, as the plot thickens we learn the complex relationship both women have with food. The film switches between 301 telling the story and flashbacks (with flashbacks within flashbacks!) which some people have said they found hard to follow but I can’t say I had a problem.
The link between the consumption of food and sexual desire is reinforced all the way through the film with flesh being a strong symbol. I wouldn’t call it a horror or overly gory but the whole film is pretty much about consumption so there is some difficult themes to deal with…
Both women’s opposing eating disorders are dealt with equally, like Yin and Yang, they are like two sides of the same coin. The costumes reflect this, when the two women first see each other 301 wears a predominately white outfit, faintly fashionable while 302 wears a shapeless all black outfit, with the glasses and bobbed hair which define her as a bookish, solitary person. Later on in the story, 301 takes on a shorter bobbed hairstyle, reflecting the shift in plot (ooooh vague is vague). 301 wears a variety of bright and pastel coloured outfits reflecting the fashion of the 90’s, in the flashbacks where she’s still married and putting on weight she wears dowdy, housewifely clothes that add about 20 years to her actual age, which makes her independence more significant. In a particularly significant scene 301 is now wearing a black jacket while 302 wears white, at the end of this scene 301’s jacket is removed and the story has come full circle…
Really very interesting. I’d love to see a remake…
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