DubiousLegacy’s review published on Letterboxd:
As soon as the first few frames of animation appeared, I said to myself, "Ah! This is by the guy that did Seoul Station!" It's such a crude and hideous aesthetic that it's immediately recognizable. Seoul Station is about a zombie outbreak taking over an encampment of homeless people, and although I didn't care for it much, something about Yeon Sang-ho's representation of homeless persons stuck with me. It was such an ugly portrait that I couldn't tell whether the director fully felt sympathy for his homeless protagonists, or whether it was mixed with disdain.
The King of Pigs brought those suspicions into focus for me. This film is also about how hopeless and savage it is to live at the bottom of the social strata. In this case, the setting is middle school, but life at the bottom is presented as even more cruel than in Seoul Station. And in this movie, there's no question that being at the bottom turns you into a monster. In the first few minutes, it is revealed that our two main characters as adults are professional failures, abusers, and one is a murderer. We only afterward hear the story of the bullying and suffering that they went through in middle school.
It's interesting to imagine what this movie would be like without that opening scene. We would be on their side so much more. We would hope for their escape. Knowing in advance that they never get free of their social standing and that they turn into demons makes the viewing experience a more complicated affair. You want the violence to end, but you know that it won't. You want the bullied kids to be saved by their hero, the King of Pigs, even though it's clear he's more damaged than anyone and can't be a savior. I found it squirmy and riveting.
After the film, I thought I had it figured out: Yeon Sang-ho had probably been a bullied kid, and this film was exploring his feelings about it. The ugliness of the protagonists in this movie came about because he had internalized feelings of worthlessness that had been shoved down his throat. His movies are expressions of the self-loathing of the bullied and the downtrodden. In other words: there was disdain for his low-status protagonists in this movie and Seoul Station, because he identifies with underclasses and believes he knows how low-status individuals look upon themselves. I hoped this was true. If it were, I can't think of any other picture of self-loathing in cinema so deeply intense. Even Solondz. Alas: reading interviews, I discovered that in middle school he was one of the invisible middle-status kids in the background; he now regrets being silent and not stepping in when others were bullied. I'm back to being uncomfortable with his representation of low-status individuals because of this. But it's something I want to keep thinking about.
I see lots of Letterboxd reviewers who hate the look of this movie. It's useful to compare The King of Pigs to Tatsumi, which is also part of the Criterion Art-House Animation series. I really went after that film in my review, saying that the tone was all wrong: the slow and lovingly-crafted animation style didn't match the psychological violence and schlock of the stories. The King of Pigs looks perfect for what it is. I actually like the character designs: all the children's faces look extremely different from one another (something animation usually has a problem with), and they express emotion very well. Lots of bared teeth.
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Personal Challenge: Art-House Animation