KIM KI-DUK GOING TO CANNES ANYWAY

Kim Ki-Duk's latest movie, TIME, about plastic surgery disasters, has not been invited to Cannes this year. Last year his THE BOW was invited. Is TIME worse? Or is this just an example of a director relentlessly doing his own thing and falling out of favor with the fickle film festival crowd? Anyways, the movie will make its premiere in the Cannes market, and has already been sold to 15 territories. So there!

There's a lot of talk that Kim Ki-Duk is a misogynist and the treatment of women in some of his movies - BAD GUY, in particular - is undeniably harsh. TIME seems to enter into that same queasy territory and tromp around in it with hob-nailed boots. Originally it was described as a movie about a woman who uses plastic surgery to change her appearance and keep her boyfriend interested in her. But after watching the trailer it's clear that it's about a woman who freaks out, leaves her boyfriend because she's worried he's going to leave her, gets plastic surgery to look totally different and then, pretending to be a different woman, she gets back together with him. "You're scary," he says, and it's true - this looks like a "women are psycho" movie.

But then, later in the trailer he gets plastic surgery, too, and now I don't know what to think. Women are psycho? Men are psycho? Everyone is psycho? Kim Ki-Duk is psycho? Dunno, but it does look like another provocation from Kim, and that's always worth 90 minutes of your time.