dangermousie | The Devil: meta and picspam

Oh. My. God.

(That scene made me cry)

I plan to do a lot more further meta on The Devil, as well as picspams for each ep, but for now, I have to say that The Devil is a drama where I would not change a single thing, from screenplay and acting to cinematography and music. It was, basically, perfect.

I am incredibly impressed by both Uhm Tae Woong and Joo Ji Hoon. I loved Shin Min Ah in this, as the woman who loves both men, in very different ways. It is hard to portray unalloyed goodness without coming across as cloying or boring, but she was wonderful. And the supporting cast was, likewise, wonderful, but it was the UTW and JJH show. I didn't know they could be like this. I did not know anyone in dramas could be like this.

The ending, while inevitable, and quite right, still took my heart and danced on it with spiked boots. But really, it could end no other way. Was Oh Soo strong enough to continue on? To survive the deaths and destruction of everything and everyone he loved around him? I think he might have been, but I think it was quite fittingly poetically just that he ended up dying exactly the same way Tae-Hun died all those years ago: as an accident caused by someone way in over his head. UTW was incredble in this, utterly incredible. I simply must see everything he's ever been in. He was so perfect as this guilt-ridden yet so utterly and warmly human and good person. He told Hae-In he was a coward, but he was anything but! The way he climbed out of his past was amazing but even more so was his attitude to Seung Ha, even at the very end. Oh, how I loved the scene where he met with Seung Ha, and told him he was sorry, and told him that he should have told the truth but he wanted to live, and his voice was thick from tears, and his face was working, and he begged Seung Ha to just come after him, to take any revenge he'd like against him, but not to make more victims. Or the scene in the underpass, where he is just hitting his head on the wall over and over and over, because he believes everything that is happening is his fault.

And Seung Ha? My (metaphorical) hat is off to Joo Ji Hoon. I would go from hating to loving and pitying Seung Ha within the minute. That was kind of insane. I loved JJH in Goong, but Goong is a fluffy bubblegum delight, nothing for anyone to show their acting chops, and I didn't know he could be like this...

Seung Ha might appear a lot more together, at first, than Oh Soo, but in reality, he is still that shell-shocked 16 year old, someone much more damaged than Oh Soo.

But yes, he couldn't possibly continue to live afterwards, not with all that guilt. He is not like his 'little helper' (tm

timescout), that twisted being who could just calmly eat his lunch with the news of Oh Soo's family self-destructing all around him. Seung Ha is, ultimately, and ironically, too good a person to be able to cope with what he has done. His brain is up to the games he engaged in for his revenge, but his heart and his soul are not.

You can see how his revenge gets bitterer and bitterer for him, how it ends up wounding him almost more than any of the victims, how it's causing him more torment: his first 'cards down' scene with Oh Soo brings him no relief, but instead he is thinking of Oh Soo's words, his sincerity and his pain. You can see it even in that symbolic mint candy he munches on: he starts with relish, but by the end of the drama he can't even bear to put it in his mouth. Unlike the 'little helper,' accosted by no doubts, remorse, or sympathy, Seung Ha ends up not being able to face himself and to condone what he is doing but is also trapped by his actions, and is locked into not deviating from his course, because if he does, all the past sacrifices, the past darkness, have been for nothing. His smile goes from enigmatic, to tired, to self-hating. I loved that scene with him looking at himself in the mirror, and throwing liquor at his reflection, bitterly asking it, 'how much will it take to make you satisfied?'

In a way, Seung Ha and Oh Soo are mirrors of each other, and not just Hae-In notices it (and witness Oh Soo's acceptance and Seung Ha's panicked denials). They are both intelligent, at-core good men trapped by the past, irreversibly scarred by it, with an unwilling sympathy towards their opponent. It's true, in some other world, they could have been friends. But they aren't mirrors just because of that. In a way, it is as if Oh Soo created Seung Ha, as a relfection of his guilt, the need fo punishment. Just as the 'little helper' is a reflection of the twisted part of Seung Ha, his wrongs made bare.

So yes, the last part of Seung Ha's plan is to die. I wonder if it was always a part of it, or something he decided later on, once he saw the effect his actions were having on others? I really think it is the former. Because that way he would both achieve his revenge and punish his own transgressions. But that is the thing! I think any such desire gets magnified and exascerbated as he realizes that the man whose life he has ruined is actually a good person. That he has damned his soul for a wrong cause. But also because he sees up close the people he has harmed, the reflections: the single mother, even someone like Seu-Jin, whose crime was to be Oh Soo's friend, but who, despite his obvious flaws, was willing to destroy himself utterly in order to protect the comfort of the woman he loved. Or even is forced to confront his similarity with Oh Soo's father. It is not black and white, there are no heroes and villains, and he is damned forever, in his own eyes. Even earlier, he tries to backtrack as much as he can, giving chances, but of course, it's too late, events are already set in motion.

And so, when Oh Soo forgives him, the man whose life he wrecked, forgives him, he cannot face it...he never contemplated life after his revenge, and the thought of living with all that guilt is insupportable. He can't cope. It terrifis him almost out of his mind (if you think about it, Oh Soo was ready to kill himself for an accidental death, but Seung Ha can't claim his actions were accidental). That is why he loses it so, that is why he looks relieved when he is stabbed on the street, that is why he goes wild and tries to kill himself. At the end, in the junkyard, the masks are off and both Oh Soo and Seung Ha are stripped to their bare essentials: Oh Soo so kind, and understanding, and full of pain but also of good, and Seung Ha that broken, hurt, emotional little boy.

Seung Ha has all these people wanting for him to come out of that tunnel: his office manager, his quasi-sister, his quasi-brother, Hae-In above all, but parodoxically it makes it worse. The fact that Office Manager and Hae-In love him despite knowing the truth, despite finding out about him (love the sin and not the sinner?) makes him feel even guiltier and more unworthy of forgiveness and happiness.

I thought earlier he would flinch from Hae-In's touch because he didn't want her to get a read, and that might still be a part of it, but I now think that at least in part, it's because he doesn't feel worthy of the good people in his world, her especially.

Because Hae-In is his and Oh Soo's good angel, isn't she? If it wasn't for her, Oh Soo would not be able to go on, not without her steadfast belief in his goodness. And Hae-In gives Seung Ha a perfect day, at least one for him to have since he was a child, and I love how after it is the first time we ever see him turn on the light in his apartment, ever.

And so, at the end, ironically, the mirroring is complete, and Seung Ha is in the same position Oh Soo was, years ago, accidentally killing someone in a situation that went out of control. Sobbing and destroyed. So he is left there, sitting and letting himself bleed to death, without calling for help, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Oh Soo, Hae-In's whistle in his hand, remembering happier days, before he dies...

This is a semi-tangent, but I love the almost Victorian hothouse of emotion and retraint that The Devil has in its expressions of caring and love. I have seen dozens and dozens of R-rated sex scenes in movies, but I literally shrieked when Seung Ha's control finally broke and he touched Hae-In's wrist. That gesture was more romantic and meaningful than any skin show, truly. Characters in The Devil are starved for emotional and physical contact and the solace it provides and allow it to themselves all too infrequently, and whenever it happens, the impact on me as a viewer is almost as strong as it is on the characters themselves.

It is all about the scene where Hae-In falls asleep in Oh Soo's car and he lets his fingers touch hers briefly. It is all about the scene where she draws his head on her shoulder as he weeps. It is all about the scene where Seung Ha can't help himself, no matter how he tries, and pulls Hae-In into the the briefest of hugs, resting his face on her hair, and pulling away before her arms go around him. It is all about the scene where she finally takes his hand, and after a startled pause, his fingers curl around hers.

Another thing I love is that while both Seung Ha and Oh Soo's pasts have both been hell the drama doesn't wallow: we get brief glimpes in Oh Soo's scene with his Dad, his query to his teacher, his scene on the bridge, or Seung Ha's seeing the body of his brother, or his mother's death, or his quasi-brother's story to Hae-In of finding him passed out from malnutricion, but it doesn't dwell on it too much for the sake of angst and emoness.

This is a spare drama, more about things unsaid than said. So that's why when there is an emotional confrontation or reaction, it hits you like a punch in the gut: Oh Soo's fevered fear, confessed to Hae-In, that he can't be good any more, or Seung Ha's reaction to the noodles (Hae-In's Mom cooks for him and it's the dish his mother used to make. He tries to eat out of politeness and it ends up almost choking him. If anybody ever told me I would cry over a scene with food, I'd think they were insane).