Your examples for comedy/tragedy mixtures are good, but I don't think they're really equivalent to what was going on in The Host. For one, they're all relatively down-to-earth in their subject matter. Sure, weird *beep* happens, but it's mostly stuff within the realm of possibility: murder, extortion, etc. An unusual/unexpected tone shift is easier to accept in a story that otherwise makes sense to us. But in a genre flick with a giant monster, the audience needs some barometer of how to react to such a bizarre situation. It can be scary (Alien), exciting (King Kong), funny (Ghostbusters), realistic (Cloverfield), or fun (The Water Horse). Obviously there are a mix of emotions in all these, but there does tend to be a dominant tone that gives us a sense of how we should feel. The Host swings wildly between two extremes, so it's difficult to get a handle on. The comedy felt intrusive and the drama felt undermined, especially when the dramatic scenes often contained sad-trombone moments of dopey failure, like the dad forgetting he was out of bullets, or the brother dropping the molotov cocktail. Maybe this is a cultural thing, and Korean audiences found that dissonance easier to reconcile, but I didn't think it was handled very gracefully or appealingly.
Another thing about those examples, the comedic tone permeates pretty much the whole of the films. There are parts of Fargo that are horrifying and sad, and others that are silly, but the film always treats them in the same way. The Coens are famous for the wry wit with which they handle dark events, and it never seems out-of-place or inconsistent. Furthermore, the acting styles are pretty stable throughout. Margie never seems alternately clownish and melodramatic, she's just the same character reacting to different situations. Same goes for Goodfellas. The whole movie takes an askance look at the absurdity of these gangsters' behavior. It doesn't seem we're ever meant to identify fully with their feelings. The Host is more like 3/4 Godfather, 1/4 Analyze This. Meanwhile, Blue Velvet makes a clear point of its tonal shifts. The quirky light-heartedness of naive suburbia is undermined by the horrific criminal underbelly. And most of the memorable comedy moments involve Frank being an lunatic, so while we can laugh at them in retrospect, they function primarily to underline the threat of his unpredictability.
Anyway, my point being that while humor and darkness can be blended effectively, that did not seem to be the case in The Host. Obviously, this is a subjective judgment, and if the tonal shifts didn't bother you then God bless. I still think it's a pretty good movie, I just couldn't get fully into it because of this issue.
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southardemily
11 years ago
I think one thing people haven't really mentioned in this discussion is that this movie is Asian, while these other examples of genre-bending films are Western films. I am not at all claiming to be an expert in Eastern cultures, and I am definitely not an expert on Korean culture, but it's something to be considered.
From my experiences with Korean films, it seems to be a culture that has adopted a lot of Western traits (by force or by choice). It seems to me that in URBAN areas in South Korea, many of the social problems mirror those faced by Western "first-world" countries. Also, as seen in the popularity of double-eyelid surgery, some Koreans desperately want to emulate Western people, and will go so far as to alter their appearance with numerous surgeries to do so. This is not the main point I'm trying to make, but I do think that a lot of the social commentary in this film is not just about the influence of American politics (and military) but also the influx of American values and the move towards "modernization" over traditional values.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I interpreted the somewhat awkward insertion of comedy as the director's attempt to bring something new to Korean film, something much more common in Western film. I may be incorrect, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I have seen very few Asian films that could really be considered "genre-bending." Most Asian films I've seen, and especially Korean films, are very tragic and dark and emotional. They may feature a few scenes that some viewers may find comedic (whether the filmmaker intended this or not) but overall, a film tends to stick to the tone that you expect from it. (some possible exceptions include Battle Royale, which has it's comedic scenes)
I found the comedic additions to be slightly bizarre as well, but it actually made me enjoy this film more. I already was expecting a lot of camp as it was a monster movie, and I thought the director was utilizing the "campiness" that was expected in a way that was unexpected. It was disjointed and just weird at sometimes, but I found it slightly relieving to watch a Korean film which didn't make me cry throughout the entire film (as most do). Obviously I don't know if this is true, but maybe the director intentionally made the comedy awkward as some sort of social statement about the West? As I said, I'm not an expert on Korean culture or language, so thats just a possible explanation. My other explanation is just that Asian filmmakers don't have the experience in combining comedy and horror. I don't really think I could name any Korean film that really has black humor in it (though if somebody could tell me of some I would appreciate it) and from MY understanding (which obviously is very limited) I don't think there is much of a history of darker comedy. It seems to me to be more of a development of the West, who have a lot of creative freedom when it comes to satire.
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