The Host (2006) – Review

Although The Host promises a familiar plot, the film as a whole is full of moments, which are likely to take the Western audience by surprise. Although incorporating a lot of the Hollywood’s institutional mode of representation (Burch 1986), the Korean box-office hit has elements and connotations, which ring “local”, rather than “global”.

From the very first scenes one can sense an obvious dislike for Americans. All American characters throughout the film are acting cruelly and irrationally (borderline mad), without any justifiable reason. The criticism reaches its peak when the Korean authorities in the film decide to release against the creature a chemical with the name “Agent Yellow”, which many might recognize as a direct reference to the Vietnam war and the highly-toxic chemical “Agent Orange”, which the Americans use, completely disregarding the fact that besides killing the plants – it is also incredibly dangerous to humans.

In his mind, the Western viewer might still compare it with a Hollywood film and expect that since we witness such criticism towards a foreign nation, the Korean characters will be portrayed as downright heroes. What comes as yet another surprise is that that is simply not the case. In fact, the entire plot revolves around the adventures of a completely dysfunctional family of people with average and even below average skills, and instead of the dashing and beautiful multi-talented hero we are used to seeing as the lead character in an American production – here the lead character is partially mentally-challenged and not physically attractive at all.

But then again – none of the characters are. All of them are shown deliberately to be not perfect, not beautiful, not particularly smart or skillful. (In that sense, although the film uses obviously professional actors, one can draw a parallel to the style of Italian neo-realism.) But for all their clumsiness, for all their mistakes – the film doesn’t judge them. It simply portrays them and makes no excuses for it. To an extent it even champions the fact that despite their flaws they still have the bravery and courage to face the monster. Even in moments when they fail the camera looks at them quite favorably and shows their actions in an epic style and composition.

The rescue team

The characters convey to the audience another interesting notion in the film – a deep sense of mistrust in official authorities. Not only are all authority figures portrayed with ridicule: as clumsy, as completely useless, and most of the time – as cruel and disregarding. It is interesting to see how none of the characters seem particularly interested in contacting them and seeking their help in any way and the fact that the first instinct of action of the grandfather is always to bribe is quite suggestive.

Having discussed the audience, the characters and the camera looks (Mulvey 1975) we can now “have a look” at the fourth look (Willemen 1994) – the moments, when the audience suddenly gets the feeling that the characters on screen are aware of them. Indeed, we can find such a moment at the very beginning with the man, preparing himself to jump off a bridge and suddenly uttering words, which seem to directly address the audience, for the lack of anyone else there at that moment. More as a devise to invite the audience “in”,  rather than push them “out” of the film’s world, the words “Did you see that guys?” tickle the audience’s curiosity and slightly nervous anticipation.

To sum up, one couldn’t instantly say what the film is about. It has two very distinct reading approaches, or tiers, as Noel Carroll calls them (Carroll 1998). One could say the story is depicting the relationships in a dysfunctional family, while, with the obvious mistrust in authority and with the scenes of friendship betrayal – uncovering a dysfunctional society. Or one could say that the film is simply telling the story of the kidnapping of a little girl and the adventures of her family, while trying to save her from the monster. In any case – a film definitely worth the time.

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Burch, N (1986). Praxis du cinema. 2nd ed. London: Gallimard.

Noel Carroll. (1998). The Future of Allusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (and Beyond). In: Rothman,W. and Andrew, D. Interpreting the Moving Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p240-264.

Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In: Screen. Vol. 16 no.3

Willemen, P. (1994). The Fourth Look. In:  Looks and Frictions. London: British Film Institute. p99-110.