Where does Park Chan-wook go now? He’s done his vengeance trilogy, his cyborg movie and his vampire film. What’s next for South Korea’s most geek-friendly auteur? It looks like a remake of a Costa-Gavras film, Le Couperet (The Axe). his had been rumored for a little while, but Costa-Gavras himself confirmed it last week.
The film by the legendary Greek-born French filmmaker (which I have not seen!) is a dark comedy that seems incredibly relevant in today’s recessionary world. Here’s the Wikipedia synopsis:
The thirty-nine years old executive Bruno Davert has been working for
fifteen years in a paper company. After a merging operation with a
Romania’s company, he is fired in a downsizing. While unemployed for
two years, Bruno loses his self-esteem and sanity and his family loses
the middle-class lifestyle without cable television, Internet and
regular consumption. He concludes that there is too much competition in
his sector for a few job positions and decides to literally eliminate
his competitors, killing those more qualified than him.
If that doesn’t sound completely like something up Park’s alley, I don’t know what is. Costa-Gavras agrees.
“I was glad to hear that Park, who has made political genre films,
wants to remake my film. I met him and we talked a lot here in Pusan. I
didn’t want to give any opinions of mine but I will support him as much
as I can in France,” Costa-Gavras told Variety at a South Korean film festival last week.