[Wetlands] delivers an image of ‘sterility’ through how a family breaks down. The death of Jean, Simon’s father, follows the farm’s financial crises. Marie, Simon’s mother, grows tormented by these circumstances. Amidst all this stands Simon in puberty. So inquisitive is he that he peeks at his parents’ making love sometimes. Lending a hand to his father, Simon makes an irretrievable mistake that brings about his father’s death. Marie gets resentful, throwing the entire blame on Simon. She comforts herself with drinking and smoking. Meanwhile, a local bum intrudes between Marie and Simon, causing some delicate situations between them. As an overlap between an oedipal nightmare and an increasingly sterilising farm, this film sophisticatedly depicts moderners’ loneliness and the limit of unburstable vitality by focusing on the farm. [Wetlands] is in fact such an intense work throughout which the process of extinction under the scorching sun is performed by a variation of tedious and violent images in a very intriguing fashion. (LEE Sang-yong)