A MIFF highlight for me was the work of South Korean Director Hong Sang-soo. Last year was HaHaHa but this year we have been treated to two.
Oki's Movie (
Ok-hui-ui yeonghwa)
and
The Day He Arrives (
Book chon bang hyang)
Both are very interesting in their own way and both display startling similarities that define Hong Sang-soo as Autuer.
Oki's Movie is clearly structured into four distinct parts or four short films, all of which are examining a film student's relationship with her professor and a fellow student. It's a love story.
However time is not linear and each has a different perspective, a different view point/angle on the same subject, sorta rolling the story out in a holographic way. (as much as that can happen in a linear medium) Each new facet of the film updates the story as it flows on. Sounds weird and it kinda is when you are used to the 3 act structure of the seamless Hollywood dreamscape. Like I didn't realise that we were watching the end at the start until I was almost at the end. The film as a whole feels like it is looping on the same thing but it is not circular, more like riffing in a music sense. The obvious structure to the film is that it is four short films or potential films, maybe drafts?, produced by the woman film student. But I think that the surface of the film is almost a distraction, a false door. It is a love story and that doesn't mean it's good!
Two men take her to the same park at different times and she compares the experience right down to who went to the toilet when and for how long, she and the park are the constant, both her partners are male but their ages are different and I think this is the key to the film. Is he young and silly? well no not really but yes indeed he is. Is he old and romantic? well of course but so much more grounded too plus a wee bit nasty.
Things are not always as they seem although on the surface that is exactly what they are. This is why Oki's movie is structured how it is and the fact that it is four short films made by one of the characters contained in one longer film is merely the justification. A little disclaimer that I may be talking out of my arse at this very moment but it matters not, the on brand message is that this is a very interesting, somewhat different film and I do recommend a look. (it is on at the Korean Film Festival 2011 but not in Melbourne, only Sydney)
KOFFIA - Oki's Movie
The Day He Arrives
Well, it has all the hallmarks of a Hong Sang-soo, it's about love, it has filmmakers as its characters, they drink (quite heavily) and low and behold time is a little bit fucked up, no one lives a simple linear story in this world but it is less obviously structured than Oki's Movie. But, hey, what a triumph, I loved this one.
This film has the key to any girls heart (this was just one of many amusing dialogue exchanges). Tell her she is one thing on the outside and the extreme opposite on the inside and no matter what you have said she will agree with you and be yours!
"you exude confidence on the outside but really deep down inside you are very vulnerable"
"oh yes that is me, how did you know???"
Probably one of the negative criticisms of The Day He Arrives is Hong Sang-soo's treatment of his women in this film, they aren't super powerful, they are pretty one dimensional and tend to be there to fall in love with the men. Speaking to some younger South Koreans after the screening they called it a 'last generation' hangover of the depiction of women, they were very quick to point out that the next generation of Korean women are more independent and less inclined to be of service for their male partners.
But the women in this film certainly fulfilled their role in throwing up the age old question of 'what is love?' and certainly helped magnify the male's relentless pursuit of it.
Like in Oki's Movie, The Day He Arrives loops time and space and I think from memory it does it four times, each with different outcomes. They all visit the bar over and over again with the same main characters but with different support cast and plot lines, each amusing and revealing in its own way.
I thought that of the two films this was the better but both are very interesting in their own way and also as a collective. Certainly I will be hunting down some more of his films and there are many for he is prolific.
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