spoilers
Is the movie supporting Sang-Hyun's final act of obliterating himself and Tae-Ju? I think there's clearly a bit of a Christian redemption subtext that suggests that this was a noble act. He's sacrificing his life and the life of the one he loves to save the world from their sin. This was originally how I saw the ending, with the subversive element being that the film is ironically landing on a Christian message despite being a very horny movie about a vampire priest.
But I also was reflecting now on an alternate way to see it, borrowing from Nietzsche: Tae-Ju is the one who understood the assignment. Being powerful, beautiful, strong, and eternal is an ontological good that's worth sacrificing the life of mortals for. Sang-Hyun is only clinging to slave morality because he's unhealthy, sick with the virus of modernity. This kinda makes sense because vampires are a pretty obvious symbol of the aristocracy. But obviously the movie wouldn't exactly be straightforwardly endorsing this will-to-power kind of worldview given the triumphant ending, which isn't exactly a Hegelian synthesis either so I don't really know what the movie is saying about the slave-master dialectic (or slave and master morality) if that is what it's intentionally about.
What do you think? Do you like this movie? It offers a lot to think about but it's one of the less impressive ones Chung Seo-Kyung wrote for Park Chan-Wook IMO. It's also interesting to think about what is going on with gender in this movie and Decision to Leave! Very Pandora/Adam and Eve stories, do these filmmakers hate women?
feelings on hunger, don't knows on a third thing
I thought it was good as far as vampire movies go, but it's not one of Park Chan Wook's best movies.
My tolerance for vampire movies is pretty slim. I wasn't a fan of Sinners, and through no fault of its own, Nosferatu (the new one). The former just seemed kind of predictable based on how it was structured, wasn't a particularly interesting way to convey cultural appropriation, and the way the music was mashed up to convey eras of music seemed thrown together. In the latter, the Count's Transylvanian accent constantly reminded me of Kayvan Novak's accent in What We Do in the Shadows, and Nicholas Hoult still reminded me of his role in The Great, which together took me right out of the tone of the movie.
Yeah I fully agree that it's not one of his best, I just found myself thinking about how there's a whole lot of symbols and imagery that are ripe for interpretation. The other vampire movies you mention feel a bit less rich in that sense, even if Thirst isn't the best movie overall.
Aside from my post, I do think there are some really interesting interpretations of vampirism in movies and TV, especially as religion pertains to it. I loved how Midnight Mass drew some pretty clear connections between Christianity and vampirism. Let the Right One In didn't really have religion in it, but it was still an interesting way to use the genre without it being so overtly about vampires.
Well Thirst itself clearly has some religious subtext, I don't know if you saw my post has a spoiler tag where I wrote about 2 of my interpretations.
I did, and I'd absolutely put Thirst in the same sort of category as Midnight Mass because of it.
Come to think of it, I think I watched Thirst immediately before Secret Sunshine, and that may have overwritten any enjoyment I got from Thirst.
