Pieta

Pieta (2012) is Kim Ki-duk's Korean drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Lee Kang-do collects debts for a loan shark by crippling people who can't pay, staging accidents so their insurance clears the balance. He lives alone and is tied to no one. Then a woman turns up at his door, claiming to be the mother who abandoned him thirty years ago.

At first he drives her off and humiliates her, testing whether she's lying. Then he starts letting her in — into his apartment and into himself. Cho Min-soo plays the mother so that you never quite know, right to the end, whether it's tenderness or strategy, while Lee Jung-jin turns a silent animal of a man into someone who suddenly has something to lose. Kim Ki-duk shoots the broke Seoul workshops, the rusted machines and the blood matter-of-factly, no gloss, and pulls a hard conversation about money, guilt and the price of revenge out of all that grime. The title points to Michelangelo's sculpture — a mother cradling her dead son — so keep that image in mind; it pays off.

The film took the Golden Lion at Venice, the first top prize at a major European festival in the history of Korean cinema. This is harsh, sometimes unbearable viewing, not for everyone: there's violence and moments you'll look away from. But under the shock sits a real tragedy. Stream Pieta (2012) online on iFILM.