Bin-jip (Ki-duk Kim, 2004)

3-Iron is one of those laconic pieces that prefers to mystify in preference to being didactic and as a consequence will leave the viewer either refreshed or infuriated, depending on whether it's interpreted as revelatory or glibly pretentious. It involves a young man who breaks into one vacant property after another, staying overnight at each, during which he eats, washes and fixes something broken. He's an opportunist and an altruist, and we never really find out more about his motives, even when a battered wife he chances on in one house leaves to share his lifestyle, since they never speak to explain themselves. So we're left to read what we can from their actions. I found it rather captivating, reminiscent of Herman Melville's short story Bartleby, the Scrivener, in which an office clerk gradually withdraws from all activity and finally self-sustenance with nothing but a 'I would prefer not to' by way of reply, but I can also understand how some might tear their hair out at its wilful crypticism.

7/10