The Profanation of the Priest: Park Chan-wook’s Thirst

This paper examines Park Chan-wook’s film, Thirst (2009), drawing attention to the figure of the undead vampire and its liminal ontology between human life and death, as well as the key role of Christianity, embodied in the main protagonist of the film, the Catholic priest Sang-hyun. Throughout the film Sang-hyun agonizes over the question of life and death. His vampire body needs the blood of other living beings in order to survive. The priest agonizes whether his own liminal existence is ethically defensible if it must come at the cost of the lives of others. The paper argues that Sang-hyun’s inability to decide, to provide a conclusive response to this aporia, reflects his inability to fully embody the position of the sovereign as he who decides (on the exception). The paper also emphasizes how the deconstructive thought so crucial in Giorgio Agamben’s work may be manifest through the philosophical powers of the cinema.