All in all, this day 3 was the best day of the Berlinale. I would like to say it was the best by far, but since “The Midnight After” is so amazing, this day is only a little bit ahead. Except for “Calvary”, all of our day 3 films are rather unknown titles, and boy are they awesome and underrated. The better a film is, the more it is difficult to blog about it because of the immense pressure to do the film justice. It’s especially hard for “Ship bun”.
At first, the screening of “Ship bun” did not start in a very promising matter. There were some technical issues delaying the beginning of the screening, which is not nice at a 10pm time slot. Then they made the director give a speech to bridge the waiting time, the film being his first feature film right after graduation you can imagine how awkward and terrible the speech was.
With that said, I want an accreditation and a job in which I can watch as many movies as Mr. Förster here. Even if you only count the new films only, there are 60 of them on this list, so that’s 6 movies per day. O.o Even so, he hasn’t seen “We come as friends”, nor “Tui na”, nor “Arrete ou je continue”, nor “Velvet terrorists”, nor “Praia do futuro”, nor “Nymphomaniac” – the Berlinale just has way too many movies. From my day 3 films, he’s only seen “Ship bun” and didn’t like it. Strange. Maybe he’s too old to understand Generation Praktikum’s struggle with getting a proper job?
Ship bun (10 Minutes)
South Korea 2013, Lee Young-seung, 93’
Ho-chan is studying to become a program director for TV, which in Korea has a three-stage examination process for most entertainment companies. He is rather seriously minded and aims to produce educational and meaningful content. Unfortunately, as the oldest son in his family, he also has to take care of his younger brother in school, a mother who gets herself into debt and a father who is jobless. To that end, he starts an internship at a public service office and quickly gets an offer to become full-time due to his diligent nature. However, things go awry when someone else gets the job instead and his work life becomes hell.
Death count: 0.
Both Pixelmatsch and Shii wanted to see this film, and I thought it was the most promising sounding South Korean entry this year. Even so, the film absolutely exceeded my expectations. Rarely have I seen a film with so much truth. It hit home more than any other film I have ever seen at a Berlinale, and that is amazing because it’s not a love story and we all know love stories are my life. So many young people start out with dreams but then end up in a hellish office, so many are stuck in internships in which they have to do everything but never get acclaimed for their good work but blamed for mistakes. Shii aptly observed that there are few films on normal people’s workplace drama, and luckily this rare gem does justice to its topic masterfully The film subtly shows the shift of Ho-chan’s co-workers from nice but silly colleagues who want to help him to betraying bitches who humiliate him to save themselves. In fact, while Ho-chan doesn’t have much choice in what he does, the depiction of the colleagues really make the film interesting. While they are by no means likable people, you can easily see that they are not bullying for fun or just for the sake of it, but they actually try to do things in what they think is the right way and all they want is to save their own positions – at the expense of others. It’s despicable because it’s so human.
If you can read German and are OK with being spoilered, this is a surprisingly good review on the film. Most notably, I thought the analysis of the film’s cinematography was totally spot-on. Indeed the film mostly uses very sparing effects or rather almost no effects at all, but that completely changes at the very end, when Ho-chan makes the decision to quit. Ever since that crucial moment until the open end of the film, Lee Young-seung uses over-dramatized, almost action-movie-like camera angles and slow motion shots, suggesting that Ho-chan’s opinion on this place has changed for good. In my interpretation, I take this as a sign that he is leaving the place for good. The only aspect I do not agree with the review is the reference to the Berliner Schule – in my book, “Ship bun” is nothing like it, and it’s not like the Berliner Schule monopolizes scarce camera effects. I have doubts that Lee Young-seung even knows about the Berliner Schule, it seems like a purely German thing without much international impact.
I came out of the film thinking: “Thank goodness I don’t have to work in an environment like that anymore”. But for most people my age, this is reality, and that makes this movie so awesome. I will definitely follow what Lee Young-seung does in the future.