by MARK SLUTSKY

Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk's The Isle shows us two tortured souls who learn to communicate through physical pain induced via self-injury. Whether you like this movie or not may depend on whether you buy this idea, or can stand to make yourself watch it. It's a strange film, this Isle: it deals so much with submerged emotion, and with characters who can't express themselves verbally, that it's hard to have much of a reaction to it. You can admire it for its visual style, or its audacity, but it's not an easy movie to engage with.

The Isle is set entirely on a small lake somewhere in Korea. Floating on this seemingly isolated body of water are a bunch of little fishing huts, weirdly domestic and banal-looking little rooms set on rafts. Men, both solitary and in groups, populate the rafts; some are there on vacation, while others have different motives. The men's needs are met by the silent Hee-Jin (Suh Jung), who ferries them back and forth and provides sundry goods and services, which includes prostituting herself to them. Jung also acts a sort of vengeful spirit, appearing from the water to stab a particularly impolite customer at one point.

Along comes Hyun-Shik (Kim Yoo-Suk), who seems equally troubled and quiet, appearing more interested in hiding out from something in his cabin than fishing. At one point he tries to kill himself, only to be stopped when Jung emerges under his raft and stabs him through the floor. They begin an ambiguous relationship that eventually climaxes in various forms of unpleasantness, mostly involving fishhooks.

Ki-Duk has made a movie that is strangely beautiful to watch, and almost soothing in its tone. You're likely to forget for the first hour or so the reports of vomiting and/or fainting critics at various film festivals around the world.

It should be noted that The Isle is preceded by La Dernière voix , a new short by local filmmakers Karim Hussein (Subconscious Cruelty) and Julien Fonfrède. With a plot involving speechlessness and mutilation, it's an appropriate companion piece to Ki-Duk's feature.

The Isle opens Friday, May 2 at Cinéma du Parc

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