It seems that every country has some cautionary tales, usually passed from mothers to children. The spiked drink, eating before swimming, taking a shower with the water heater on, falling asleep on the bus and waking in the most dangerous area of the city and many others, seem to linger somewhere between freak accidents, urban legends and reality. Kim Joon-ha takes inspiration of a Korean one, which involves a taxi driver drugging his victims with gum, in order to present a 20 minute short that moves somewhere between the thriller and the comedy.
“A Taxi of Coldness” is screening at Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh
Seung-hoon is rather drunk and so decides to take a taxi to return home, even joking with his girlfriend about the fact. His driver is a middle-aged man, fostering a cross in his mirror, who almost immediately after getting inside, offers Seung-hoon gum, kicking in a memory of his mother telling him about what happened to the daughter of a friend who took gum from a taxi driver. Seung-hoon declines, and a rather intense game of can-and-mouse begins, where is difficult to understand if the taxi driver is actually a predator or the whole thing is drawn out of the mind of a drunken man. As Seung-hoon begins to rationalize the whole thing, its ridiculousness comes to the fore, but at the same time, something continues to seem wrong, with the ending, actually presented only through sound and voices during the ending credits, providing a totally unexpected answer.
Kim Joon-ha directs a very interesting movie, particularly in the way it combines comedy with thriller. The flashback with Seung-hoon's mother, where Oh Mi-nae gives a truly memorable performance, and his rationalization regarding the “urban legends” mentioned move towards the first path, while the constant sense of danger emitted from the passive-aggresive behavior of the taxi driver move towards the second. At the same time, the rapport between the two protagonists also benefits the movie to the fullest, adding to the sense that something wrong is taking place, with the performances and the chemistry of Baik Seung-hoon in the homonymous role and Maeng Bong-hang as the taxi driver being among the best traits of the movie.
Also of note are the ways Kim gives a film that essentially takes place exclusively inside the cramped space of a taxi, a sense of movement, with the well placed flashbacks, the almost constant change of the person in focus, and a number of interesting montages, courtesy of editor Sim Min-young, and the way the narrative unfolds being the main mediums of this trait. Kim Jung-woo's cinematography also makes the most of the “single location”, while the quality of the image here, as usual in Korean productions, even in shorts, is top notch, something that definitely makes the movie easier to watch.
The ending is also quite appealing, but at the same time, it would have been more interesting if it was visually presented instead of just heard, although its impact is not dulled significantly by this choice.
“A Taxi of Coldness” is a very appealing film, that manages to make the most of its small duration in order to mock urban legends and cautionary tales, while entertaining its audience throughout.
