Gill
A woman is knocked off a bridge – as she falls, she worries she’ll be mistaken for a suicide – and saved by a young man who can breathe underwater … he has gills and also a pattern of shiny fish-scales on his back. The youth disappears superhero-like without staying to be thanked (or captured) and the woman becomes obsessed with finding out who he is … which eventually takes her to Venice (with its canals) and a meeting with Kang-ha, a young man who cares for his ailing grandfather and claims to know something about the mer-man, who he calls Gon. In flashbacks, Kang-ha tells how a younger Gon came to live for a while with him – an angry kid abandoned by his mother, who ran off to become an actress – and his kindly grandfather … and how the two unparented boys had a fractious, complicated, yet also deep relationship.
Directed by Ahn Jae-hoon – who also co-wrote with Sep Hae-in and Kim Joo-an – this Korean animated feature is an entry in the ‘mysterious being from the sea’ sub-genre of fantasy, but takes a very unusual narrative approach and explores an interesting, unusual set of relationships. Gon, whose own origins are hinted at but never laid out, is naïve but well-intentioned. He has to keep a low profile to avoid winding up as a laboratory specimen but his instincts are to save people from drowning – or their own pains – and he’s trusting and suggestible even as Kang-ha is borderline abusive to him, resenting another semi-orphan being added to the menage. Late in the flashback, another character is added to the mix and precipitates a story crisis which dovetails with the frame story.
Gill is a character piece rather than plot-driven, with realistic, expressive animation which nevertheless allows for patches of the fantastical – like the multi-coloured scales on Gon’s back – to intrude into the world. Extremely impressive and ultimately very moving.
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