Have you ever cleaned a person’s ears and wondered what it would be like to shrink down and climb into their ear and view their memories? No? The same can be said for myself. This sentiment only goes to show that such an idea is very original. I would never have thought of such a strange thing until I watched “Je-bool-chal-ssi-I-ya-gi,” also known as, “The Story of Mr. Sorry.”
What it’s about/is:
“The Story of Mr. Sorry” is about a timid man working for an ear cleaning company, which apparently is a big thing in Korea. Sorry (yeah, that’s actually his name) is searching for his sister, who he has fond memories of cleaning his ears. No matter how hard Sorry works, he just can’t seem to win, until one day he is given dietary supplements by his boss, which cause him to shrink to a freakishly small size. Sorry is now able to clean the inside of ears so well it makes him famous. Soon Sorry finds that he can gain access to people’s memories and fears. During his “adventures” into the minds of his clients Sorry see’s some very disturbing and sad images.
“The Story of Mr. Sorry” has a very unique style of animation. The characters look very much like paper puppets, allowing you to see the “joints,” in their limbs. The characters are all drawn in a disgusting and hideous fashion, with only the sister being remotely beautiful in correlation with Sorry’s memory of her. The movie goes from story of sad timid under appreciated worker to a barrage of surreal and terrifying imagery.
Who made it:
The movie was directed and written by Kwak In-Keun and Il-hyun Kim. It is in the Korean language and runs around sixty-five minutes.
Rating:
The story was strange, I’m still not sure I completely understand everything that Sorry saw in his client’s heads, but I do know some of it touched on hot topics. I applaud such a strange story taking a moment to bring to light such topics. However, the disgusting art (which was done to create a certain type of environment) and a slow moving story had me wishing it was over sooner. The 65 minutes it lasted felt like too long, especially since the excitement all happened at the end of the movie. I gave it a 3 out of 5, for effort and originality. After all, I couldn’t do any better myself.
