Why was part of my higher education learning to write a compare and contrast essay? What’s even the point of those? Feels like a lazy mistake of film criticism. If you think anyone cares about hearing you compare and contrast Serpent’s Path (1998, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) with its remake you’re too stupid.
Although I was surprised to find that Serpent’s Path (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) almost entirely jettisons its predecessor. The plot points you do remember when they recur are modified. There’s still a dirty tile room for the questioning. And a lush verdant ext for the bad guy abduction. For the remainder of this post when I say Serpent’s Path I’m gonna solely be referring to the 2024.
Serpent’s Path takes all the fun out of the revenge genre. For that alone it shoulda been awarded a Nobel Prize. As far as the narrative goes the plot removes all ambiguity. The tone of this is heavy.
Oppressively. Paralyzing. When ALBERT BACHELET flutters tickled giddy throwing LAVAL’S food on the ground we aren’t laughing with him. That moment is horror manifest. After we’ve seen the ending and put it all together we’ve become complicit in the trauma. This is a moral indictment. Made all too uncomfortable not by being explicit but rather by its restrained deliberate tone and execution. The audacity with which what and how Serpent’s Path chooses to leave out is stunning. Perfection. Perfected.
It leaves out the sensationalization of punishment scenes and in doing so dismantles the revenge genre. But it spells everything out plotwise. Not through exposition dumps but enough. It’s here and now and real. Child trafficking. The foundation. The circle. Deborah Minar. With the state of current real life sensationalist shock scandal frenzy conspiracy glut I’m surprised more people haven’t seen this movie.
Not exaggerating the scariest thing about Serpent’s Path for me even me boasting I’m not one to be scared by movies the climax in that warehouse. It troubles me beyond gore menace deranged villains or any conceivable aesthetics of cinematic evil. When that guy JAKE is killed then all of the sudden this devious twist implicit maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy what the hell? All those sweet wholesome innocent looking little kids looking like they’re fine in some daycare with this really sweet teacher.
The sweet teacher who explains to Albert and subsequently more importantly for our benefit the truth behind what really happened to his daughter. You didn’t love that girl. That girl hated her parents. You told me to consult Deborah is overwhelmingly subversive. Truly unsettling. The stuff that resonates. That I can’t shake. Why does that teacher have to be so sweet oh god? Genius.
Oh wait. There’s also this abduction of CHRISTIAN in a gym that’s so realistic it has to be my new favorite fight scene in a movie. It’s sloppy. The way it’s choreographed timed and how hard they have to earn it by making it look so natural is the equivalent of cinema at its finest. Figuring out new better ways to do something like a fight scene already suffering from overly-familiar fatigue.
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