I've got to have you under my skin

Looking at the alluring and mysterious poster for "The Isle," it's hard not to think David Lynch. A nude young woman stands gazing straight ahead with an intensity that falls somewhere between seduction and menace. Her ghostly and transparently pale body is superimposed onto a Lynchian landscape of dark blues and purples, the still waters of an eerie lake a thinly veiled metaphor for the abyss of sexual obsession.

Still, even Lynch -- with his love of femmes fatales and unspeakably dark desires -- would have a hard time making it through the last reel of Kim Ki Deok's film. "The Isle," with its squirm-inducing mix of sex and violence, had audiences running to the toilets in droves when it screened at major film festivals like Venice. It also picked up several awards -- at Brussels, Moscow and Portugal -- which is indicative of the split reaction accorded the current wave of cinema de scandale.

We've had plenty of extreme cinema the past few years. Surely after the ultra-close-up childbirth shot in "Romance," the bullet "where the sun don't shine" in "Baise-Moi," the flagellation in "Lies" and the needles in the eye of "Audition," some viewers may be wondering if it's still possible to be shocked, if there's any button left to be pushed. Well, welcome to "The Isle." The shock du jour? Fishhooks.