I guess I probably make violent films partly because I can't

Host: The city stretched beneath the moonlight, raw and electric — a sea of steel, neon, and noise. The rain came in slow sheets, blurring the edges of reality. Somewhere above the city, in a forgotten warehouse turned studio, two figures sat surrounded by film reels, empty bottles, and the faint hum of an old projector.

The air smelled of dust, celluloid, and something else — memory, perhaps. The projector’s beam cut through the dark, casting fragments of light across their faces — faces haunted by dreams, failure, and the lingering pulse of unspoken rage.

Jack leaned against a stack of film cans, cigarette glowing like a dying star between his fingers. Jeeny sat near the projector, her eyes fixed on the flickering image — a man in black falling to his knees in slow motion, the sound muted, but the pain deafening.

On the wall behind them, Park Chan-wook’s words shimmered in the reflected light:
“I guess I probably make violent films partly because I can’t express my anger in my real life very well.”

Jeeny: (softly) “He admits it like a confession, doesn’t he? As if cinema was his only way to bleed without making a mess.”

Jack: (exhales smoke) “Or maybe it’s just honesty. At least he knows what his monsters look like. Most people pretend they don’t have any.”

Host: The smoke curled through the light, merging with the images on the wall — faces twisting, gunfire frozen mid-flash, a red umbrella opening in a black-and-white storm.

Jeeny: “But it’s sad, isn’t it? To have to hide your anger inside art. To turn pain into something beautiful — just so it doesn’t destroy you.”

Jack: (dry laugh) “Sad? No. It’s survival. Everyone hides their rage somewhere — he just learned to make money off his.”

Jeeny: “You sound almost jealous.”

Jack: “Maybe I am. Because most of us don’t get to sculpt our demons. We just… live with them. Pretend we’re fine while they whisper behind our ribs.”

Host: The film clicked, the reel ending in a hiss of white light. The room fell silent except for the rain. Jeeny reached out, stopping the reel, her fingers trembling slightly.

Jeeny: “You know, I don’t think his violence is about hurting. I think it’s about releasing. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “Tell that to the blood on the screen.”

Jeeny: (turns to him, voice sharper) “And what would you rather he do? Suppress it until it spills somewhere real? Maybe we should thank artists like him — they’re the ones keeping the rest of us from detonating.”

Jack: “So violence becomes therapy now?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes. In art, at least. Better to destroy illusions on film than people in the street.”

Host: Jack looked at her — not with mockery this time, but something quieter, more dangerous. The kind of silence that happens right before realization or regret. His eyes, steel-grey and tired, flickered as the projector’s light touched them.

Jack: (gruffly) “You talk like you’ve been there.”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “Maybe I have. Maybe anger isn’t just his story. Maybe it’s everyone’s — just dressed differently. Mine comes out in words. Yours in silence. His in violence. Same disease, different masks.”

Jack: “I don’t buy that. Violence poisons you, Jeeny. Even if it’s fictional. You feed that beast long enough, it starts thinking it’s real.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it already was real — and the film just showed it the mirror.”

Host: The rain drummed harder now, echoing through the broken windows like a heartbeat out of rhythm. The projector light wavered as the power flickered, shadows dancing across the walls — human, monstrous, indistinguishable.

Jack: “You know what scares me? That he said it so calmly. ‘I can’t express my anger in real life.’ Like the rest of us are supposed to understand. That’s not art. That’s a warning.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s both. Maybe art and warning are the same thing. Maybe he’s not telling us to follow him — he’s telling us what happens when we can’t speak.”

Jack: (takes a drag) “You think the world listens?”

Jeeny: “No. But it remembers. That’s what cinema does. It remembers what we’re too afraid to say.”

Host: The projector bulb flickered again, showing fragments of another film — a man’s face streaked with tears and blood, his scream silent, his rage contained within a frame that could not hold it. The room glowed with that terrible beauty — fury turned into poetry.

Jeeny rose and stood before the wall of light, her shadow cutting through the image.

Jeeny: “You see that? That’s what I mean. He’s not glorifying pain. He’s confessing it. Every slash, every scream — it’s him saying, ‘I couldn’t say this in words, so I said it in blood.’”

Jack: (softly) “And what if no one hears the confession? What if the world just claps?”

Jeeny: (turns to him, voice trembling) “Then it’s not his sin — it’s ours.”

Host: The rain outside softened again, now just a whisper. The two stood in silence, the room pulsing with the afterglow of flickering images. Jack’s cigarette burned down to the filter. Jeeny’s shadow trembled against the screen — two ghosts in conversation with their own rage.

Jack: (low, distant) “You know, I used to paint. Before everything. Before I realized beauty didn’t save anyone. I stopped when I realized the things I painted started to look like the things I feared.”

Jeeny: “So you stopped to protect yourself?”

Jack: (nods) “Maybe. Or maybe I stopped because I realized I wasn’t painting anymore — I was confessing. And I wasn’t ready for that kind of honesty.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Park Chan-wook does, Jack. He bleeds on the canvas and calls it cinema. Maybe that’s why it feels alive. Because it costs him something.”

Jack: (quietly) “And what if bleeding becomes addiction?”

Jeeny: “Then it’s still better than numbness. At least pain reminds you you’re still human.”

Host: The fire escape light outside flickered red, bathing the room in a hue that felt both sacred and dangerous. It was the color of rage and forgiveness intertwined — the shade of truth too raw to name.

Jeeny walked over to Jack, took the cigarette from his hand, and crushed it in the ashtray.

Jeeny: “You don’t have to make violent films to understand him. You just have to admit you’ve got violence inside you too. Everyone does. Some turn it inward. Some turn it into art. Some... just try to survive it.”

Jack: (meeting her eyes) “And you? Which one are you?”

Jeeny: (a faint, sad smile) “The one who listens. The one who still believes anger can turn into something softer if you give it light.”

Host: Outside, the storm finally broke. The rain stopped, and the city lights shimmered like open wounds healing in the dark. The projector clicked off, leaving only the hum of silence — raw, tender, and strangely alive.

Jack and Jeeny stood in the half-light, neither triumphant nor defeated, but seen. The walls still echoed with the ghosts of other people’s fury — Park’s, theirs, everyone’s — but for once, it felt shared.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe that’s what he was doing all along. Not making violent films. Just trying to stop himself from exploding.”

Jeeny: (nods) “And maybe that’s the truest form of art — the kind that saves the artist before it saves anyone else.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — through the broken window, over the wet rooftops, across the endless city, where millions of souls hid their storms behind smiles, behind screens, behind stories.

The last image: the flicker of a film reel still turning, long after the movie had ended — spinning with quiet defiance, like the pulse of a heart that refuses to go still.

In that rhythm —
there was rage,
there was beauty,
and above all, there was healing.