Lies
LIES／嘘
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A sculptor and a schoolgirl escalate a sadomasochistic affair; the novel was banned and the film was cut before release.
Y is eighteen and in her last year at a provincial high school. Her friend Woo-ri is infatuated with J, a sculptor of thirty-eight whose book of work she owns, and Y telephones him in her place. After a series of calls they meet at a small railway station and go straight to an inn, where Y, who has decided that her first sexual experience will be on her own terms, sleeps with him. J is married; his wife lives in Paris, apart from him.
The film presents what follows as a shared passion. It is a relationship between a married man of thirty-eight and a schoolgirl of eighteen, and it is built on violence. At their next meeting J tells her he wants to beat her, and he does, and the beatings grow worse each time. On a visit to Paris he begs his wife to beat him, and she refuses; his desires have strained their marriage for years. After one especially brutal beating Y turns on him, and from then on they take turns.
Y's brother discovers the affair and sets fire to J's house. Y, by now at university, cuts her hair and drops out; J leaves home; and they live from hotel to hotel, working at nothing, turning their backs on everyone, marking each other with tattoos. When Y's brother is killed in a motorcycle accident and J's money runs out, Y leaves him, though he begs her to stay. J goes back to his wife in Paris.
Years later Y, stopping in Paris on her way to South America to live with her sister, calls him, and they meet one last time in a hotel. They never see each other again. When his wife asks where he got his tattoo, he lies.
Starring
Lee Sang-hyunas J
A married sculptor of thirty-eight, living apart from his wife, who begins a violent sexual relationship with an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl.
J’s story
J, once a successful sculptor, now does nothing; his wife lives in Paris, and his desires have strained their marriage for years. Y, eighteen and in her last year at school, rings him in her friend's place, and after a series of calls he meets her and sleeps with her at an inn. At their next meeting he tells her he wants to beat her, and he does, harder each time. His wife refuses when he begs her to beat him. When Y turns on him, he lets her, and they take turns. After her brother burns his house, he lives with her from hotel to hotel until his money runs out and she leaves. He goes back to his wife; years later he meets Y in Paris one last time. When his wife asks about his tattoo, he lies.
Kim Tae-yeonas Y
An eighteen-year-old in her last year at a provincial high school, who telephones the sculptor in her friend's place.
Y’s story
Y is eighteen and in her last year at a provincial high school when she telephones J in her friend Woo-ri's place; after a series of calls she meets him, having decided that her first sexual experience will be on her own terms. At their next meeting he tells her he wants to beat her, and he does, harder each time. After one brutal beating she turns on him, and they take turns. When her brother sets fire to J's house, she cuts her hair, drops out of university and lives with J from hotel to hotel. After her brother is killed in a motorcycle accident and J's money runs out, she leaves him, though he begs her to stay. Years later, on her way to South America, she calls him from Paris and meets him one last time.
Jeon Hye-jinas Woo-ri
Y's friend, infatuated with the sculptor through a book of his work, in whose place Y makes the first call to him.
Choi Hyun-jooas G, J's wife
J's wife, living in Paris, who has long refused his desires and to whom he lies at the last.
Han Kwon-taekas Y's brother
Y's brother, who discovers the affair and sets fire to J's house.
Why it matters
Lies was notorious before it was made. Jang Jung-il's novel Tell Me a Lie had been judged pornographic by a Korean court and its author arrested; Jang Sun-woo's film of it was twice refused a rating at home and released there only in a heavily cut version, while abroad it was shown uncut and competed at the Venice Film Festival. It is an argument about censorship, about what a society decides to find obscene and whom it punishes for it. It is also built to unsettle, breaking off for interviews with the author and the actors, as if to insist that everything on screen is performance. What the film never questions is the fact at its centre. Y is eighteen and still at school, J is thirty-eight and married, and the film asks its audience to take his violence as her desire. The last lie in it is his, told to his wife.