Celebrated
minimalist South Korean film director Hong Sang-soo remains curiously under the
radar among world cinema consumers.
Overshadowed by his contemporaries including but not limited to Kim
Ki-duk, Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon and especially by Park Chan-wook, Sang-soo’s
works are noted for their understated dramatic power, their handsome yet subtle
and mannered camerawork and for their own connection to the auteur’s life
itself. Much like the great Chinese
director Wong Kar Wai, Sang-soo’s films often concern characters falling in and
out of love with unspoken romantic longings and unresolved social tensions
playing themselves out.
While
Chan-wook’s world renowned Oldboy proved
to be all the rage at the Cannes Film Festival before locking in a firm grip on
Western audiences, Sang-soo’s own Woman
is the Future of Man and the loosely related follow-up Tale of Cinema came and went without generating much business or
attention despite their joint critical acclaim.
And yet both works represent two indelible additions to the modern South
Korean film scene more international filmgoers should acquaint themselves
with. Thanks to the always dedicated
efforts of Arrow Academy, world moviegoers now have a chance to take a closer
look at these quietly affecting human dramas which are as vital now to South
Korean film history as they are to any film buff’s cinematic vocabulary.
Woman is the Future of Man (2004)
Considered
by many to be the director’s first international ‘breakout’ film with, for
some, a drastic shift in tone and approach to his earlier, heavier dramatic
works, Woman is the Future of Man by
title (actually an ironic spin on a poetic line lifted from Louis Aragon) sounds
like a light romantic ditty. Watching Sang-soo’s
tightly constructed and often darkly comic rumination on two old friends who
seek out a triangular reunion with an old ex-girlfriend they once both dated at
different times, the actual film proves to be about these men and their own
kindred inability to find happiness with the opposite sex. Enter filmmaker Kim (Kim Tae-woo), who after
bumping into longtime friend Lee (Yoo Ji-tae from Oldboy) decides at Lee’s behest to meet up with ex-girlfriend Park
(Sung Hyun-ah) for drinks, setting in motion a myriad of unresolved sexual and
emotional tensions which play themselves out over one fateful night.
A
modestly paced yet subtly labyrinthine tale of male anxieties in the face of
the opposite sex as well as a taut comedy of manners with dual meanings hanging
over every line of dialogue, Woman is the
Future of Man like its characters intentionally leaves numerous loose ends
throughout the film unresolved with far more meticulously intertwined emotional
complexity linking these three seemingly lost souls together than a typical
romantic dramedy might. Minimalist with
deliberately repetitious symmetrically lensed vistas by Kim Hyeon-gu of
characters posited on opposite sides of the frame and aided by a quiet, oddly
charming score by Jeong Yong-jin, writer-director Sang-soo’s mise-en-scene
keeps everything directly in front of the camera yet each exchange of dialogue reveals
facets between the lines driving the film’s characters. It’s the kind of film with so many hidden
layers by the time it finishes, we’re inclined to roll it back in case we
missed something.
Performances
are expectedly strong, notably from veteran South Korean heartthrob Yoo Ji-tae
who as a college art professor provides a remarkable contrast to his
Machiavellian villain in Oldboy. Especially startling are Kim Tae-woo as the
learned filmmaker who finds himself shriveling up like a frightened little boy
as booze fuel preexisting anxieties and Sung Hyun-ah as the once frail young
lady who after more than a few less than pleasant sexual experiences now stands
as a woman who may have outgrown her male counterparts. None of the characters feel like contrivances
but extensions of the director’s own personality with his renewed focus on lost
and wandering male characters unable to fully mesh with goal oriented women who
know precisely where they’re going.
Sadly
Woman is the Future of Man simply
didn’t stand a chance against that other Yoo Ji-tae film released around the
same time and while that film went onto become a blockbuster and international
favorite, Sang-soo’s film suffered at the box office considerably. The film also has somewhat more limited
appeal to staunch cinephiles less keen on brutality and visual pizazz than dense
yet subtle human stories about real people told with brevity and finesse. That’s not to say Oldboy doesn’t stand on its own as an impeccably crafted and
emotionally wrenching thriller, but it is most certainly a shame that film’s
overwhelming success may have contributed to this film’s failure. No matter, as years have passed and Sang-soo’s
film gradually did amass a legion of fans and seen years later it remains an
indelible work driven by the delicate narrative structure and the understated
performances.
Score:
Tale of Cinema (2005)
Far
more meta than Woman is the Future of Man
with a somewhat less compelling narrative, episodic format and a looser
visual style keen on the zoom lens, Hong Sang-soo’s Tale of Cinema is both a love letter to the movies as well as a
continuation of the recurring themes of uncertain male characters’ anxieties
bubbling to the surface in the face of female determination. Seemingly split into two separate stories,
the unspoken film-within-a-film zeroes in on depressed college student Sang-won
(Lee Ki-woo) who forms a suicide pact after a shaky reunion with ex-girlfriend
Young-sil (Uhm Ji-won). Soon we realize we’re
watching this story play out onscreen within a movie theater alongside
struggling young filmmaker Kim Dong-soo (Kim Sang-kyung) who believes the film
has told the tale of his own life before inadvertently crossing paths with the
actress who played Young-sil.
More
broadly appealing and distinctly defined than Woman is the Future of Man, Tale
of Cinema is as much an ode to the movies as well as an acknowledgement of
the often blurred lines between reality and illusion. Is film just an unattainable box of magic or
does it have far more footing in the real world than people realize? Furthermore, does film reflect human
experiences or do we project onto it what we want to see and hear? Sang-soo’s film poses these questions while
still displaying a clear love for the medium and illustrates how underneath all
that fantasy displayed on a movie screen is a very real and relatable person
with more in common than we’re led to believe.
It’s the sort of film Godard sought to make his whole career but with an
emotional center.
Making
a drastic shift visually with frequent zooms and pans indicating the
film-within-a-film, Sang-soo hired two cinematographers this time around with
Kim Hyung-Ku and Kim Young-rho who provide in the two halves of the film two
disparate visual styles. The cinematographic
result isn’t as symmetrical or polished as Woman
is the Future of Man but it didn’t take long to get used to either. Reuniting with composer Jeong Yong-jin,
listeners are treated to a score that’s equal parts minimalist whimsy and
heartfelt emotional strain. Like the
film’s visual approach, the sharply contrasting audiovisual styles take time to
get into their mutual rhythm which can abruptly change tonally in the blink of
an eye.
As
with Sang-soo’s previous film, performances are solid with both Lee Ki-woo and
Kim Sang-kyung presenting the anxious young man uncertain of himself in the
presence of a determined young woman, and like Sung Hyun-ah the film’s heroine
played by Uhm Ji-won is focused and worldly, providing a stark counterpoint to
the male characters. Mostly, however,
this is a director-driven picture with a more involved visual sense though some
may prefer the more mannered style of Woman
is the Future of Man to it. While
for me personally the first film in this set was the more involving of the two,
Tale of Cinema is equally emotionally
complex with as much to say about the world of the movies as well as those
watching them. Moreover, Tale of Cinema aims to illustrate the
amounts of what we take away from a film as well as what we bring in as we
watch it.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki