Starting Tuesday, November 30th and continuing until this Sunday, December 5th, the Seoul Cinematheque is playing a small, seven film retrospective of the Classic Hollywood director John Ford. The films range from his silent THE IRON HORSE in 1924 up through to a film widely thought to be his last true masterpiece, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, in 1962. Also included are: STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND (1935), DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939), THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940), HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941), and MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946). A small but strong showcase of Ford’s work, missing his greatest achievement, THE SEARCHERS, but including many other highlights.

Last week I reviewed a film often considered as one of the first of the Korean New Wave, Park Kwang-su’s 1988 CHILSU AND MANSU. This week I want to discuss a film from the opposite end of the movement, Jang Sun-woo’s 1996 A PETAL, which is released as the Korean New Wave is ending and the less political New Korean Cinema is beginning. Like Park Kwang-su, Jang Sun-woo made his first feature in 1988 and was a director very prominent during the years of the Korean New Wave. He continued into the late 1990s, making provocative works like TIMELESS, BOTTOMLESS, BAD MOVIE (1997) and LIES (1999) which challenged the local censors, but in 2002 he produced a major box office flop, THE RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, and has retired from filmmaking ever since. In my opinion, this is one of the major losses for not only Korean cinema, but all of the film-loving world. I think that both A PETAL and LIES are among the great films of the 1990s, and while LIES is readily available on DVD both in Korea and in North America, A PETAL is still enormously difficult to find. The Korean Film Council has made a DVD available for scholars, but no commercial release is currently in print. This review is written partly with a desire to see the film rediscovered.

When first released,  A PETAL received a great deal of attention because it was the first narrative feature film to deal with the May 1980 Kwangju Massacre, a major Korean historical trauma that had been repressed for many years. At the time of release, Kwangju was very much on the mind of the nation. South Korea’s first civilian president, Kim Young Sam, had ordered the trial of former presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, partly for their involvement in the Kwangju massacre. As a result, many documentaries on the incident aired on Korean television, and it featured as part of the television mini-series “Sandglass”. Jang’s take, however, was quite unique and very much his own idiosyncratic vision. Over the opening credits, Jang shows documentary footage of the massacre accompanied by a Korean pop song of the period from which the film gets its title. This juxtaposition creates one of the great opening scenes of Korean film, and throughout Jang shows his skill in creating memorable sound/image fusions.

We see a flashback to a young girl singing the song in front of her brother and his friends, and then the film returns to the recording as we see the brother’s friends in the present, on a train in search of the missing girl of their now decreased friend. There are flashbacks throughout back to this moment of the young girl singing, a kind of lost innocence that can never be regained.

Then the main narrative begins, as we see the young girl follow a working class laborer along a barren stretch of shoreline. Believing him to be her deceased brother, she continues to stay with him even as he rapes and abuses her. Typical of Jang, there is a strong sado-masochistic relationship at work, intimately linked to the historical situation of a nation abused by its patriarchal authority figures. As we eventually learn through Jang’s editing, the girl endures the abuse at least partly out of her own guilt at witnessing and, in her mind, helping cause the death of her mother during the massacre. Thus instead of a straightforward historical recreation of history, Jang does something much different, reminiscent of an art cinema take on historical trauma such as Alain Resnais’ HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959).

During another rape scene later in the film, the girl re-imagines her pursuit by a military helicopter through an animated sequence in which she is saved by a man on a white horse. Thus the impulses of both self-punishment as well as a desire for her lost heroic male figure seemingly drive the girl. It is important to note that this idealized male figure is her brother, not her father, who is never mentioned. Symbolically, it is as if this typical working class male takes on this role of the brutal father figure representative of the state, a metaphor for the way in which power can be carried out by those it is also repressing.

As the narrative continues, the man eventually reforms, trying to take on a more paternal and caring role rather than a brutalizing one. However, the sins of the past, both personal and historical, cannot be erased and have to be confronted.

This leads to the movie’s climax, an extended flashback to May 21, 1980 that takes place at the brother’s grave. The girl, in what Jang has called a kind of shamanistic ritual exorcism, tells the story of that day as, against her mother’s wishes, she follows her mother into town as  she tries to join an anti-government demonstration, spurred on by the recent death of her son, who has been conscripted into the army as punishment for his dissident activities.

Amid the general violence and massacring of the protesters, the mother is shot and killed as she reaches back to help her fallen daughter. In order to get free, the girl has to violently break the grip her mother has on her arm by breaking her fingers. She is only able to escape because the soldiers assume she is dead and toss her with other dead bodies in the back of a truck, an image that clearly calls to mind the holocaust. Against this tale, the man can only watch shamefully, and eventually he himself will go mad, hoping for the girl’s return.

Even though the girl’s story does provide a kind of catharsis, it does not solve anything in terms of the narrative. The brother’s friends are never able to find her, and she ultimately remains elusive. It can be argued that she is not really a character in the traditional sense, but rather a part of a guilty national conscience that has begun to move on and forget the past without really dealing with it. As many critics have argued, she is something of a phantom, and we can even question how much she really exists. Towards the conclusion, the friends believe they see her sleeping on a train, but it is revealed to be simply a old woman. She is also something of a zombie, rising from the back of that truck to haunt and pursue and infect the society that killed her.

The ending has one of the brother’s friends at the grave site. In voiceover, he delivers the film’s final lines, expressing a desire to ask the audience to confront rather than repress the ugliness of its historical past: “If you pass the cemetery and happen to meet a girl wandering about the area, just ignore her. Then, if one day she approaches you, don’t be afraid. All she needs is a moment of your concern.” Coming at the end the Korean New Wave, Jang seems to be acknowledging this lack of historical memory, a lack that would only grow in the decade and a half since this film’s release. Jang himself has disappeared from the scene, but there remain directors inspired by this same message, such as Im Sang-soo in THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG and Lee Chang-dong in PEPPERMINT CANDY. Writing about Jang, Lee Chang-dong expressed his admiration for Jang’s ability to “give things a shake”. Although he is no longer active, revisiting films like  A PETAL can still provide a needed social-aesthetic jolt.

After a very long absence of over three months, I finally returned to a multiplex theatre on the weekend to catch one of the most critically acclaimed Hollywood films of the year, a practical shoo-in for multiple Oscar nominations and the early frontrunner to be the big winner: The David Fincher (SEVEN, FIGHT CLUB, ZODIAC) directed, Aaron Sorkin (THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, THE WEST WING) scripted THE SOCIAL NETWORK, aka “The Facebook Movie.” Based on the book THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES, the film tells the story of the founding of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and the resultant lawsuits brought against him by former best friend Eduardo Savern (Andrew Garfield) and the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer). The film was released a couple of months back in North America, thus quite a bit has already been said and written, most of it very positive. The praise has been particularly effusive for: (1) Sorkin’s script; (2) Fincher’s reserved direction; (3) the performance of Eisenberg, Garfield, Hammer, and Justin Timberlake (playing Napster founder Sean Parker); and (4) the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I had a mixed if ultimately positive reaction overall, very much liking two of the above elements but finding two of the others very much not to my taste.

First, I’ll start with the positives. The screenplay is very strong, especially in terms of dialogue. Sorkin is one of the most distinctive writers out there, mostly known for his television work on “Sports Night” and “The West Wing” but also penning screenplays for Rob Reiner’s A FEW GOOD MEN and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, as well as Mike Nichols’ CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (a fine discussion of Sorkin’s career can be found on a recent episode of “Battleship Pretension”, available here). In this film, the structure is rather loose and in terms of dramatic build-up, it is slightly lacking. But the dialogue is great to listen to, rapid-fire and intelligent, reminiscent of old Hollywood writers like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, the type of writing most movies have abandoned because of its stylized nature. The actors are equally good, handling the difficult amount of words and speeches very smoothly. I’ve always been a fan of Eisenberg; in fact, I wrote a piece about his performances in three of his early movies (available here). This character is very different, much less likable right from the great opening scene, but nevertheless somewhat familiar in being a highly intelligent yet awkward male trying to negotiate a social world he does not really understand. Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg as the smartest guy in the room, and yet also with a kind of autistic quality, unable to read others and somewhat distracted by his own thoughts. Despite the claims of many that this is an unfair and inaccurate portrait of Zuckerberg, I think it is more positive than negative. Certainly, Sorkin could have pushed a much harsher portrait in which Zuckerberg is simply a lucky guy who is one of the richest men in the world mostly by chance; that, however, would be a radical departure from American ideology, and Sorkin remains invested in the myth of the great man, even if that great man is also a bit of an asshole.

The aspects that I disliked were the direction and the music, although I have to acknowledge that both are very well crafted on their own terms. Fincher is clearly a talented director, but I think this is not material that suits him very well. Many have commented that he is more restrained here, but I disagree. Yes, there are not many flashy sequences, but the heavy amounts of rhythmic cutting eventually grows tiresome. While effective during an early sequence showing Zuckerberg creating “Facemash” intercut with a Harvard frat party, the desire by Fincher to constantly manipulate and bombard the viewer with his technique robs the film of any real nuance and emotion. It is as if Fincher does not trust a modern audience to have any patience: thus a dramatic film has to take on the pace and energy of a Hollywood action film because he cannot trust the viewer not to get bored. Again, the skill here is undeniable, but craft alone does not make great cinema (Exhibit A: “Spielberg, Steven”). Connected to this is the music score, which on its own terms I quite like as music, but just not as “film” music. It is far too intrusive and heavy-handed, at times dominating the image track and ruining what would otherwise be effective scenes of dialogue and drama. Again, it is a Hollywood film no longer trusting the material and deciding pyrotechnics are needed for the easily distracted modern viewer.

What this points to is a bigger issue: what will happen to modern Hollywood films that are not action films? Will they try to compete with the style of blockbusters? Will the style of THE SOCIAL NETWORK continue? On one hand, you can understand the worry of directors and producers, given the disinterest of audiences recently with the more conventional “Oscar-bait” dramas. But at the same time, television dramas like “Breaking Bad” are able to balance great action with quieter drama without over-indulging on empty formalism. But maybe that’s the problem. The quality of long form, serialized television has made the smaller budget, dialogue heavy movie drama irrelevant. If cinema is not dead, perhaps the prestige Hollywood picture will soon be. Good night, and good luck.

The South Korean filmmaker Park Kwang-su is generally unknown in world cinema culture. He has been largely inactive in the past decade, with only one feature, MR. DADDY (aka SHINE DAY) in 2007, as well as a segment (“Face Value”) in the anthology IF YOU WERE ME (2003) and a segment in the first Jeonju Digital Project in 2000 (“http://www.whitelover.com”). But for those with an interest in Korean film history, he is one of the key figures. Park studied art at Seoul National University and then film production in Paris. He returned to Seoul and made his debut film, CHILSU AND MANSU, which is usually regarded as one of the first movies in what would become known as the Korean New Wave. From 1988 to 1995, it can be argued that Park was the most important and respected director in the country, making such politically charged works as BLACK REPUBLIC (1990) and A SINGLE SPARK (1995). His fall from prominence coincided with the fall of the Korean New Wave and the rise of the more commercially viable New Korean Cinema. It is noteworthy that Lee Chang-dong began as a screenwriter for Park and eventually carried on the mantle of the Korean New Wave into the next decade with films such as PEPPERMINT CANDY (1999), OASIS (2002) and SECRET SUNSHINE (2007). Although now often forgotten, Park is a filmmaker deserving of rediscovery by those now interested in the great films and filmmakers that came after him.

Watching the opening of CHILSU AND MANSU, one can understand the impact it would have on a Korean cinema that, with a few exceptions, had been unable to really deal with the reality of the society over the previous decades. Made following the end of the Chun Doo Hwan regime and the beginning of democracy in the country, Park begins with a shot of Mansu, a window cleaner, looking over the city as a siren blares in the background. Park then shows a 360 degree pan around the Gwanghwamun area, passing by such famous landmarks as the Admiral Yi statue (the difference with how this looks today is, of course, quite striking to anyone familiar with the area). Throughout Park grounds his style in the locations of his characters, impressively managing to integrate his actors into the urban environment. But he also establishes very early, through the character of Chilsu, the importance of fantasy as well. Not surprisingly, this fantasy world is very foreign, reflecting an increasingly postmodern, Americanized Korea. Chilsu begins by following a college educated girl, Ji-na, first to an arcade, where he fantasizes about driving along an open highway, and then on to her job at Burger King, where he pretends to be an art student and lies about going to America.

This lie extends later in the film, when Chilsu, working as a painter with Mansu, follows Jina into a department store and imagines being introduced to her mother. In reality, however, he cannot match up to this image and quickly flees the store.

The last half hour of the film abandons the fantasy of Chilsu and goes deeper into the dissatisfaction of the two lead characters, ending with a long sequence on top of a billboard. The problems of both of these working class characters can be found in the society at large, reflected through each man’s relationship with his father. We eventually learn that Mansu’s family has been affected by his father’s long imprisonment as a political dissident. And in flashback it is also revealed that Chilsu’s father worked as a pimp, providing girls to American soldiers, and is now living out his days as an unemployed alcoholic. Neither man is political. In fact, both seem to try to avoid it. Mansu hates his father for abandoning his family, and Chilsu only dreams of escape into fantasy, represented by America. They are very much “good” working class citizens according to state ideology, just as political protest and democratic reforms involving the minjung (the people) is occurring all around them. It is thus a strong irony that when they shout their general frustration from the top of the billboard, they are mistaken as political agitators and a huge media and police circus forms around them, characterized by a tragic-comic array of misunderstandings. Finally, Chilsu is led off by the police, while Mansu decides to jump.

There is not a great deal written about Park in English, but certainly a great place to start would be the chapter on his early films in Kyung Hyun Kim’s THE REMASCULINIZATION OF KOREAN CINEMA. His analysis is sharp as always, pointing out the psychoanalytic aspects of the characters. His final line about CHILSU AND MANSU is a great summation of the film’s thematics:

“The moment they begin to verbalize their frustration, in their effort to reconstitute their masculinity, they are found guilty by the state, subject to arrests and even death for a crime no one — including the state — knows exactly how to identify.” (151)

From our current perspective, it is easy to see how Park’s approach has become outdated. Although he mixes in the generic elements of melodrama and the male buddy film, Park is ultimately about denying rather than providing spectacle. Such a serious and politically-minded cinema would not be able to sustain itself in the postmodern Korean filmic landscape, and Park would become marginalized, not unlike his characters. Perhaps what is most remarkable is that such tough-minded and challenging work was ever able to gain a mainstream audience in the first place.

Unlike most of Park’s other films, CHILSU AND MANSU is available on DVD in many place around Seoul, as well as through Seoul Selection bookstore.

Other than Lee Chang-dong’s POETRY, which I had seen earlier in the year, my favorite film at the recent Pusan International Film Festival was Hong Sang-soo’s HAHAHA. This is the tenth feature from Hong, and features a plot that is immediately recognizable to those familiar with his work. Two friends take turns telling about a recent trip they had to the small town of Pongyeong. Munkyung (played by Hong veteran Kim Sang Kyung), a filmmaker, visits his mother and ends up having a relationship with Seong-ok (the great Moon So-ri). His friend Jung-shik, who is married, tells a parallel story about his trip with his girlfriend Yeonjin in which he ends up interacting with a few of the same characters, including his friend, Jeongho, a poet who is also involved with Seong-ok. Both seem unaware that they are talking about many of the same people in both their stories. Although the plot is very much the same, Hong’s stylistic and narrative approach offers some new variations.

Like most of Hong’s films, there is a prevalence here of long takes. There are a total of 87 shots in a film lasting approximately 115 minutes, for an Average Shot Length (ASL) of nearly 80 seconds. As in his previous four films, there are plenty of zooms, by my count over 30, so that nearly every long take sequence does provide scale variation and movement into a scene. Hong’s use of the zoom remains quite unconventional because there is no obvious reason why he uses such an obtrusive device for moving into a scene (as opposed to simply editing). Part of the answer has to be, I think, that it IS obtrusive, that it does call attention to itself, and thus forces the viewer to be aware of what they are being shown, rather than being sutured into a sequence through the power of continuity editing. Hong’s use of the long take/zoom is thus akin to his narratives, challenging the audience by making them aware of the process and forcing them to use their own critical faculties.

One addition Hong makes to his usual stylistic repertoire here is the use of stills. The 87 shots of the film do not include these numerous stills. The film begins with a series of these frames, roughly 15-20, and then continues to occasionally intercut one or two stills in between sequences as the two friends alternate in telling their tales (a total of 29 overall). This means that there is here, for the first time in a Hong feature, a voiceover narration, as we never actually see the friends meeting. We only hear their stories over the still images (there is voiceover in Hong’s short film, LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS).

The narrative form breaks down as follows:

Opening voiceover/ series of stills; Munkyung’s story: 2 shots; 2 stills; Jung-shik’s story: 2 shots; 2 stills; M’s story 6 shots; 2 stills; J’s story 1 shot; 1 still; M’s story 3 shots; 2 stills; J’s story 2 shots; 3 stills; M’s story 2 shots; 2 stills; J’s story 2 shots; M’s story 3 shots; 3 stills; J’s story 1 shot; 1 still; M’s story 10 shots; 2 stills; J’s story 5 shots; 1 still; M’s story 3 shots; voiceover but no stills; J’s story 1 shot; 2 stills; M’s story 4 shots; 2 stills; J’s story 1 shot; 2 stills; M’s story 2 shots; J’s story 6 shots; M’s story 4 shots; J’s story 1 shot; M’s story 5 shots; J’s story 2 shots; M’s story 2 shots; J’s story 4 shots; 2 stills; M’s story 2 shots; J’s story 4 shots; M’s story 5 shots; J’s story 3 shots; voiceover conclusion

The use of the stills act here like pillow shots, signaling the shift between stories as the narrative alternates perspective. As the film progresses Hong does not use the stills as often, as the audience has settled into the rhythm and does not really need them. However, only seeing the film once, I do wonder if something else is at work here. Specifically, what I cannot answer with any confidence is how subjective each of these stories is. Hong is known for having flashbacks and alternate story lines that seem subjective but ultimately may not be (the classic example is THE VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS). The stories clearly focus on each of the two characters and events that happen to them, but at the same time Hong as the ultimate narrator/director presents the sequences to suit his own overall vision, and that vision does not seem tied to the subjectivity of the two protagonists. It is also not clear from a single viewing about the chronology of events. The two stories take place at roughly the same time, at least it seems, but the form may or may not be strictly linear. There is something at once very familiar to Hong’s approach here while at the same time offering a variation we have not seen.

The thematics are also familiar but with some important variation. Many of the male characters seem trapped in a kind of prolonged adolescence, with the female characters stronger and more mature but also trapped within their own personal and cultural limitations. Seong-ok is a particularly fascinating character. We are introduced to her in her job at a local cultural museum, giving students a history lesson on Admiral Yi, a prominent mythical figure in Korean nationalist ideology. At a later lecture, someone challenges her by asking if we can really believe the stories told about Admiral Yi, given that so much of history is exaggerated. In one of the funniest moments of the film, Seong-ok berates the man for daring to ask such a question while becoming extremely flustered and indicating her own unease at the question. For a director usually seen as very apolitical, Hong is clearly exposing how fragile myth and ideology are and why it is so potentially damaging for both when any questions are asked. It is also telling that a female character is the one so invested in the myth. Seong-ok is in many ways a progressive character, someone who is independent and open about her sexuality and desires while also being trapped within ideological norms, especially around masculinity. She breaks up with the poet Jeongho when she finds him cheating on her, but after a failed romance with Munkyung, she calls Jeongho at the end of the film, perhaps motivated by his display of masculinity when he beats up Munkyung earlier. Even her attraction to Munkyung seems based on his reciting of advice he received in a dream from Admiral Yi (another amusing sequence, a rare dream of a Hong character that is obviously such because of the presence of a long dead historical figure).

No character seems able to avoid repeating their own mistakes and the outdated cultural prejudices that continue to live on. Jung-shik tries to finally recognize the legitimacy of his relationship with his girlfriend by introducing her to his uncle, but he has to get drunk first and then proceeds to cry like a child and pass out in front of the male authority figure (who is authoritative in structural position only; the uncle comes off as very reasonable and sympathetic). The last scene, in which his girlfriend, Yeonjin, tells him she won’t pressure him anymore and that she is at peace with their relationship, can be seen as both healthy and progressive (especially compared to the other relationships we see) or a rather cynical critique of how limited the choices of the female characters are within this society.

There is a kind of warmness and gentleness to this film that is not often found in Hong, which can be rather deceptive while also indicating a certain truth about Hong as a director. There is more humanism here than in his other work, and the comparisons often made with Eric Rohmer are becoming more and more apt as Hong progresses. Certainly, as social satire goes, this is more Jean Renoir than Luis Bunuel, especially in the way the film ends, with each character thanking the other for sharing his story and indicating how much they enjoyed each other’s tale. This is something of a masking (as if often was in Renoir), and if thought about enough the story becomes as grim as other Hong tales.

I would not rank this as Hong’s greatest, but it is another very entertaining and thought-provoking work from a filmmaker who seems incapable of making anything else. One wonders if Hong’s films will continue to mellow with age. It’s possible, but it is equally likely that he will reinvent himself again, all the while making another film that seems almost identical to all the others.

One of the more difficult aspects of living in Korea is a certain feeling of isolation, a fact only increased by the high turnaround of people leaving the country after a year or two. Finding like-minded people with similar interests is fairly rare, and thus seeking out discussion on the internet becomes a popular past-time. My favorite outlet tends to be podcasts, which make the various commuting most people have to do in Korea more enjoyable. Here are my five current favorites in the category of film.

1. IFC News Podcast: Hosted by Matt Singer and Alison Whitmore, this has become my favorite show. The title is somewhat deceptive: the content is rather “indy” most of the time, but certainly it is not about “news”. Each week, there is a discussion of a broad topic, which the hosts dissect and analyze over the course of an hour (examples include “Our Faithful Look at Infidelity Movies,” “Movie Medium, Game Logic,” and “Speaking Out About Voiceover Narration”). Some are more serious than others, but the discussion is consistently intelligent and entertaining. Only small complaint is the lack of back episodes, although apparently this is currently being corrected. Released every Monday.

2. Battleship Pretension: For a long time my favorite podcast, and very similar in format to the IFC News Podcast, with hosts David Bax and Tyler Smith discussing a different topic each week. They also include a number of guests, which is why the podcast’s quality is less consistent than that of IFC, since some guests are great and others not so much. And after a few years, it feels slightly less fresh. But overall still very fine, and I would especially encourage people to check out older episodes, especially the ones on their favorite films of all-time and their round-up of the last decade’s greatest. Usually released on Mondays.

3. Filmspotting: One of the longest running podcasts out there, and still one of the best. Hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson, it is a highly structured show, with a weekly review of a new film, a fun segment called Massacre Theatre, listener feedback, a film from their Marathons (a series of reviews in which they discuss films of the same director or genre), and a Top 5 list. A fun show, less deep than the others at the top of my list but well-informed and knowledgeable with great production values. Usually released on Fridays.

4. Slashfilmcast: A much more mainstream podcast, hosted by David Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley, that is often criticized, rather unfairly, as being fanboyish. It is true that they concentrate on mainstream releases, with little interest in art cinema, but the show itself is quite entertaining, even if I do not have much interest in many of the movies they discuss. Although there is a main review, they also each discuss what they have been watching, which usually includes worthwhile recommendations, and they attract a good collection of weekly guests. Usually released on Mondays, with an “after dark” episode at the end of the week.

5. Criterion Cast: A podcast modeled somewhat on the slashfilmcast, but focusing on a film each week from the prestigious Criterion Collection DVD company. Hosted by Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher, and James McCormick, it is fun hearing a discussion of these older films that rarely get any publicity. However, the hosts often don’t have much to say, and thus usually need a strong guest to carry them. Their taste also seems rather conventional for people focusing on art cinema. Still, worth exploring, especially if you like the film they are reviewing that week. Released on Mondays, with a “disc two” episode later in the week.

I just concluded three full days of screenings at this year’s Pusan film festival, seeing a total of ten films. Partly because of circumstance, partly because of the festival’s emphasis this year and partly because of my own interests, the majority of the films I saw were Korean. The only non-Korean film I saw was the Czech film KAWASAKI ROSE. Some of the Korean films were of the popular variety, making this a far more mainstream event for me than usual, with films such as THE ACTRESSES, I SAW THE DEVIL and THE MAN FROM NOWHERE. But there were also a fair share of art cinema (POETRY, HAHAHA) and retrospectives (PROMISE OF THE FLESH, KILSODEUM, TICKET), as well as a Korean cinema documentary that is, technically, an Italian production, directed by Korean cinema enthusiast Leonardo Cinieri Lombroso. Here are my general thoughts and some mini-reviews.

I’ll start with the non-Korean film, KAWASAKI ROSE, a 2009 work from director Jan Hrebejk (who previous directed the Oscar nominated DIVIDED WE FALL). This is a fine piece of political drama that becomes better as it proceeds. It starts with a family melodrama in which an adulterous husband is working to ruin the reputation of his esteeemed father-in-law, who is about to receive a “Memory of the Nation” award for his anti-Communist activities. As the story progresses, however, it becomes more complex and frankly profound, delving into the whole idea of collaboration and responsibility in a way that provides no easy answers. Although in this case it is the Communists who were in power, it is striking how much the issues raised here parallel the anti-Communists witchhunts of 1950s America. At one point a collaborator states that she “never told them anything they didn’t already know,” a familiar cliche of people who named names to HUAC. The problem with this is, of course, as one character states, “the devil is in the details”. The conclusion offers a moment of catharsis in which admission of guilt is made (something rare in real life, unfortunately) but is smart enough not to completely forgive and offer complete reconciliation. The scars are too deep, and the final shot leaves a fair amount of tension in the air.

The documentary THROUGH KOREAN CINEMA works as an introduction to the topic, but is ultimately fairly slight and at 70 minutes too broad in scope to offer much more than a cursory glance at the nation’s cinema. The five directors interviewed and profiled are well chosen (Im Kwon-taek, Park Kwang-su, Lee Myung-se, Lee Chang-dong and Park Chan-wook), as are the three commentators (Korean film critic Lee Young-jin, Korean scholar Kim So-young, and Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns), and certainly if you are new to Korean cinema, you will learn something. In his interview afterward, director Lombroso admits that his main audience are Europeans without much knowledge of the topic, and on this level it works well enough. It is a nice companion to Jang Sun-woo 1995 CINEMA ON THE ROAD, although that earlier film works much better by being more narrow in focus.

The Korean retrospectives featured three films with the actress Kim Jimi, including two films from 1986 directed by Im Kwon-taek, KILSODEUM and TICKET. Although I was anticipating TICKET more, KILSODEUM proved to be the better film. The story revolves around the uniting of Korean families that was taking place in the mid-1980s. It opens with footage from KBS television in which we see emotional scenes of family reunions, but Im mediates this footage through the TV screen of a middle class family. We learn that the wife of this family was from a small town near the border, Kilsodeum, and with her husband’s blessing she goes searching for her former lover and young son. The film then alternates between the present day and flashbacks to her previous life. Eventually she finds her former lover and they encounter a man who they believe to be their son. However, he is a poor, rather uncivilized character who drinks heavily and beats his wife. At the conclusion, the woman returns to her middle-class family, despite learning that the man is (almost) certainly her son. With this film, Im is questioning the “reality” of the sentimental KBS melodramas and suggesting that this film, even though a “fiction,” is much closer to the truth, that reuniting (and reunification) is not nearly so simple. TICKET is a fairly interesting time-piece, giving a look at the lives of women working as prostitutes at a coffee shop. There are some great scenes between the women, but also a great deal of artificiality from the plot that mixes uneasily with the more gritty elements. Kim Ki-young’s 1975 PROMISE OF THE FLESH was truly terrible, but mildly fascinating as well. The first thirty minutes are basically soft-core porn, and the film looks terrible due to the low production values of the time. The last hour is better, with Kim’s interest in Freud apparent in the hysterical view of sexual repression shown by all the characters. But the whole thing is so ridiculous that it’s hard to stay engaged. What it shows is that even with a talented director and cast, making a good film in 1975 Korea was a near impossibility.

The three Korean genre films offer a comparison to Hollywood blockbusters in being generally far more stylistically diverse and thematically challenging. THE ACTRESSES is a blend of fiction and non-fiction, with six famous Korean stars playing themselves: the older generation, represented by Jeong Yun-gi (THE HOUSEMAID) and Lee Mi-sook, the middle-aged generation, represented by Go Hyun-Jung (WOMAN ON THE BEACH, LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL) and Choi Ji-woo, and the younger generation stars Kim Ok-vin (THRIST) and Kim Min-hee. There has been much discussion this year in American film about the blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction (EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, I’M STILL HERE, CATFISH) and this film fits into the dialogue, with the six actresses playing versions of themselves, getting together for a Vogue photo shoot on Christmas Eve. It is not always compelling and is ultimately not as challenging as it could be, but there is lots to like here. Especially great is Go Hyun-Jung, who almost blows everyone else off the screen (with the exception of Jeong Yun-gi). I SAW THE DEVIL, shown here uncut for the first time in Korea, is quite an effective take on the by now cliche of the Korean extreme revenge thriller. I’m not a huge fan of director Kim Jee-woon, being especially disappointed with 2008′s THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, but thought I SAW THE DEVIL was a memorable and vivid take on the revenge tragedy. If Park Chan-wook is the Shakespeare of this form, one could consider I SAW THE DEVIL as the John Webster Jacobean variation, taking the violence and depravity to new heights (or maybe depths). Like Park’s vengeance trilogy, there is a formal beauty here along with the savagery, and given the predilection for superhero films within blockbusters, this can be seen as a perverse revision. We see the origins of a super hero cop whose fiance is murdered, causing him to seek revenge and engage in an epic struggle with his arch-villain. The difference here is that the insanity involved is laid bare, although like other superhero revisions, such as KICK-ASS, it still revels in its violence even while condemning. Not as strong as Park’s thrillers, but it is a worthwhile addition to the genre. The same cannot be said of THE MAN FROM NOWHERE, a heavily melodramatic tale about a violent hero who we are supposed to admire and sympathize with. The male melodrama is a quality typical of Korean action films that differentiates it from Hollywood, but this tale doesn’t offer anything original and becomes quite dull after the opening set-up. It is also shamelessly manipulative in its use of a young girl and her relationship to the title character.

Not surprisingly, my two favorite films of the festival were from my two favorite Korean directors, Lee Chang-dong (POETRY) and Hong Sang-soo (HAHAHA). I’ve already written about POETRY previously (see review here), so I’ll only add that it stands up well to second viewing. Hong’s latest was also great, as usual, but I’ll write more about it later in the week in a full review. The only additional comments I would make about this year is that Pusan does a fine job in its presentation of Korean cinema, including a strong collection of films and many guest visits from prominent directors (I personally saw Q&As with Im Kwon-Taek, Lee Chang-dong, Kim Jee-won, and Hong Sang-soo). This year had less from European and North American directors, especially contemporary cinema, but it remains an essential place for those with a strong interest in Korean film.

Films Screened (in order of preference):

POETRY (5 stars)

HAHAHA (4 1/2 stars)

KAWASAKI ROSE (4 stars)

KILSODEUM (4 stars)

I SAW THE DEVIL (4 stars)

TICKET (3 1/2 stars)

THE ACTRESSES (3 1/2 stars)

THROUGH KOREAN CINEMA (3 1/2 stars)

THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2 stars)

PROMISE OF THE FLESH (2 stars)

Here are some selections for a rainy Saturday at the Pusan International Film Festival. At Haeundae, there is Lee Chang-dong’s great POETRY at 11:00, Im Kwon-taek’s TICKET at 2:00, Kim Tae-yong’s LATE AUTUMN at 4:00 and the uncut version of Kim Jeewon’s I SAW THE DEVIL at 8:30. Over at Centum City, there is Carlos Saura’s THE HUNT at 1:00, the documentary THROUGH KOREAN CINEMA at 4:30, and Jia Zhang-ke’s I WISH I KNEW at 7:00. In Nampo-dong, there is a choice between Luis Bunuel’s VIRIDIANA at 8:00 and another Spanish classic, DEATH OF A CYCLIST, at 8:30.

For Sunday: at Haeundae I am curious about the Mexican sci-fi film BY DAY AND BY NIGHT at 11:00. I plan to see the Korean action-thriller THE MAN FROM NOWHERE at 2:00, Kim Ki-Young’s PROMISE OF THE FLESH at 5:00, and finally, my most anticipated film of the festival, Hong Sang-soo’s HAHAHA at 8:00. Over at Centum City, there is Takashi Miike’s THIRTEEN ASSASSINS at 12:30 and Carlos Saura’s CRIA at 5:30. Over in Nampo-dong, I’ve heard high priase for PLEASE DON’T DISTURB at 5:30, and I would also recommend THE HOUSEMAID at 5:30 if you haven’t yet seen it.