THE WAILING (Goksung, 2016)

South Korea-USA. Direction: Na Hong-jin. Production: Suh Dong-hyun, Kim Ho-sung / Side Mirror, Fox International Production (Korea). Screenplay: Na Hong-jin. Photography: Hong Kyung-pyo. Music: Jang Young-gyu, Dalpalan. Edition: Kim Sun-min. Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Jun Kunimura, Chun Woo-hee. Running time: 156 min

LANGUAGE: Korean / SUBTITLES: Basque

156 minutes of fascinating nonsense that delighted half of Cannes in the Official Selection before receiving acclaim in Blanca Subur (Sitges). Directed (and written) by the author of The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010), it is reminiscent of Abbot and Costello, that makes you rethink how beautiful, folkloric, shimmering and smoking exorcisms in South Korea must be, in comparison with the exorcisms performed by the very dark Polish Church, for example. Powerful suspense, politically incorrect, yet savoury humour, heavy gore (crows devouring a mastiff, shamans vomiting everything up to amniotic fluid) in a film that is also a gloomy portrait of a village and families tossing and turning in their misery.