Tag: Korea

Sometimes I forget what I have done on a specific Berlinale day other than seeing movies. I think I actually managed to spend an entire morning and afternoon (after the film) with O on day 8, but I just don’t remember. I do know that by the time I got to the film, I was pretty tired and glad that there were only 3 days left, and that I could sleep in on these days. I was looking forward to some (if not all) of these films very much, and it definitely helped that the cinemas were also comparably less packed than the first weekend.

I doubt I missed out on a lot when I fell asleep. The only thing that confused me a little was that I didn’t know whether the film had two or three parts (like “In another country”), but later I learned that part 2 was just much more extensive than part 1. If that is the case, then I suspect I actually didn’t miss out on a lot at all, perhaps just 15 minutes or so.

Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (On the beach at night alone)
South Korea 2017, Hong Sang-soo, 101′

To me, parts 1 and 2 are completely different films, though they are both quite typically Hong Sang-soo. It’s good to know that all of his movies are still exactly the same (as I expected and desired), but somehow this one fails to stand out for me.

Let’s start with part 2, which actually is special for a Hong Sang-soo film, because it’s unashamedly giving an insight into his own real life relationship with Kim Min-hee. Maybe that makes this film even more autobiographical than his other films, but these autobiographical tidbits actually dampen the art in my opinion. The confrontation between Mim-hee’s character and the director sounds exactly like what it is: Two people shouting their feelings at each other, embarrassing themselves in the process and ultimately not saying anything of interest to anyone else. I couldn’t really relate to any of them during that moment, much unlike in part 1 when things were largely unspoken and therefore more interesting.

Part 1 also wins because it has other little Hong Sang-soo tidbits that I like: a conversation in a pretty cafe, a charming bookstore (in this case with a very charming bookstore owner who also composes children’s music!) and a stroll through the park followed by a cutely awkward meeting with some foreigners. Even a mystery man character appears and gets to do something humorous at the end. I can relate to the main character’s desire to live somewhere else, even though you can strongly feel her cultural and mental disconnect with the place, so I thoroughly enjoyed this part. I liked that the director was physically absent even though he was constantly on her mind.

As it so often happens in Hong Sang-soo films, you don’t know which parts were “real” and how the different parts connect. I like the simple interpretation that parts of the film were a dream, which is honest and goes in line with the unusual amount of wishful thinking (which is a lot even for a Hong Sang-soo film). “On the beach at night alone” was ultimately not bad, but I preferred most of his other films.

I like pre-purchasing tickets for the last day of the Berlinale because the tickets are cheaper anyways, and because having the tickets already motivates me to actually go and see films on the last day. Originally I even wanted to see 5 movies on this day (6451 shows how easy it is to do so), but I didn’t get tickets for “Wonderful World End”. That is fine – I don’t expect the movie to be good anyways, it will most likely be available online someday and this way Loris and I were able to enjoy the fine weather we luckily had that day.

After Pixelmatsch and 6451 saw “End of Winter” on day 1 (while Loris and I watched “Love, theft and other entanglements”), they both ranked the film pretty low. Honestly, if I hadn’t had tickets already, I most likely would have skipped on the film which, I think, would have been a grave mistake. Just like “Ship bun”, this is not a film you will easily find on the internet (I suppose). It was absolutely worthwhile to see the film at the Berlinale if this is my only chance to see it.

End of Winter (Cheol won gi haeng)
Korea 2014, Kim Dae-hwan, 103′

Wife, two sons and a daughter-in-law attend a teacher’s retirement ceremony. There are dissonances between all of them, but when the father announces that he wants to divorce his wife (from whom he has been living separately for a long time), everybody is shocked. On top of that, a snowstorm keeps everyone up from going home as buses are not running, so the entire family is stuck in the father’s little apartment and forced to spend a few days together.

I cannot explain it, but this film was much to my tastes. 6451 is right with his assessment that this is a movie where essentially nothing happens, nothing big gets revealed (besides the divorce announcement at the beginning) and which doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. Nevertheless, I thought it was a lovely character study, and I especially enjoyed the father’s quiet grumpiness. In an effort to explain myself, the film reminded me a little bit of “Still Walking” which I disliked. In “Still Walking”, however, the entire family is dysfunctional in a different way: Everybody is polite but there is so much hatred underneath that I cannot possibly fathom why some critics ramble on about the film is about “love” in a family. There is no love between them, for goodness’ sakes. “End of Winter” is similar, but they are much more open about it in comparison. There is much miscommunication and simple refusal of communication, but at least it’s not pretense and hidden hostility. The daughter-in-law openly complains to him about her husband’s family, and the son asks his father the right questions – I liked how this family was generally less mean-spirited (except for the mannerisms of the mother maybe), which makes the gravity of their differences more interesting. I think if you are mean, it’s no big surprise you cannot truly bond with other people, but if you are simply normal, the inability to understand each other and be ‘good’ to each other is much more tragic and ultimately more interesting.

Oh, I should also mention that I did fall asleep in the film a little bit, but not for too long. It certainly is the type where not all that much is happening for sure, but it’s fine that way. For a young director’s work, I thought “End of Winter” was well-crafted, and I surely liked all the snow and the Korean barbecue. (The movie gave Pixelmatsch a craving for it, and now I am craving it too.)

This year, the Berlinale was barely showing any Korean films. Originally I thought that “End of Winter” sounded more interesting than the pathos-laden “Ode to my Father” (which it really was), so I only scheduled for the former. Then my plan was to see the previous Golden Bear winning short films which would have run right after “Ode to my Father” at the International, and there was nothing in this time slot so I decided to add it in. After getting sick, I kicked the short films out of my schedule because I didn’t want to stay up too late, and finally I ended up just seeing “Ode to my Father”. But since it was a very memorable experience (so much so that I revisit the film in my head again and again), it turned out very well this way.

Ode to my Father
South Korea 2014, Youn Je-kyun, 126′

While trying to flee from the Chinese troops, Duksoo loses his sister which makes his father go back to look for her. With only his mother and two younger siblings left, he promises his father to take care of his family. Instead of pursuing his dream of becoming a ship captain, Duksoo goes to Germany to work in coal mines, takes over his aunt’s store on Gukje Market, marries a girl he met in Germany and goes abroad again, this time right into the Vietnam War. In the 80s, he finds his sister through a television program. In a timeline told from today’s perspective, Duksoo reminisces about these times and finally comes to terms with the fact that he will never find his father anymore.

I should have known that the film would be intriguing for me. Just like I adore evil women, love triangles and adultery in film, I love stories spanning an entire lifetime (or almost a lifetime). It’s the reason why I like “Huo zhe” so much, and why I was so deeply in love with Capek’s “An Ordinary Life” which I just finished reading. Interestingly, the fictionary lives in all three examples are parables; they are not exactly realistic or individual, but these people’s lives are the product of their time. They are designed to be mirrors of society and everything major in history had an impact on their lives (the Cultural Revolution, the Korean War, World War I respectively). At the same time, there are strong personal influences going into these protagonists: Capek has similar parents as his nameless character’s (especially the overbearing mother), Youn even gave his main characters the names of his own parents. While these three works are ultimately not comparable at all (and I feel a little ashamed for mentioning Capek and “Ode to my father” in the same sentence), the similarities are still striking and oh, I love these stories for that aspect.

At the beginning of the film, I wasn’t so sure I would like it. It starts off with an unbearably sappy scene in which Duk-soo’s family flees which is basically a “Lord of the Rings”-sized epic tearjerker. You are supposed to feel oh so sorry for these poor people running for their lives, and of course I did, except that I was rolling my eyes constantly and actively kept myself up from succumbing to the sappiness. Soon after, Duksoo’s accident in the coal mines in Germany were not much better. The scene in which Youngja kneels down in front of these very Nazi-looking Germans, pleading “These poor Koreans came all the way from their country to work for you!” Oh God, that line is so bad on so many levels that just thinking of it makes me cringe. At least they saved that scene a little bit by not allowing the Germans to suddenly have a heart, but the Koreans staged a nice little revolt which made the whole thing a tiny little bit more realistic. The whole first part of the film was about having mercy for those poor Koreans, it was simply embarrassing.

Afterwards, however, “Ode to my father” became one of those few films for me which actually turns better rather than worse towards the second half. While saving the sister of a little Vietnamese boy was way too blatantly reminiscent of Duksoo losing his own sister, I thought that most other callbacks to previous elements of his life were pretty lovely. The movie actually expects you to have some sort of memory while watching the film, you will find the old Duksoo say “I told you before” about how he wanted to be a ship captain and then some half an hour later, we see Duksoo on his first date with Youngja many years before, telling her about his dreams for his future. The film walks the fine line between overly pathetic and painfully touching, and for the second part of the film I was just crying non-stop. The KBS show in which families found each other hit a nerve somewhere, and after I had a stuffy nose the entire day, it was finally emptied out through a 20 minute long constant stream of tears. It was so darn touching! Oh and the end was wonderfully beautiful. I thought it was utterly satisfying yet bittersweet because, really, Duksoo’s father would have been so proud seeing his son uphold his family traditions, however pointlessly conservative they may be. I was touched by how he achieved everything in his life that his father could not do, and yet remained lonely and misunderstood even by his wife.

There was one scene which I found especially memorable, much like Sasha’s horse from “Under Electric Clouds”, which is that Vietnamese boy who saved Duksoo from an attack just because he gave him chocolate before. To me there was something so simple and touching about it, much more so than some of the other aforementioned tearjerker scenes. I think the movie does well in these details, apart from the obligatory humorous tidbits (which of course must be done well since this is a big blockbuster after all).

Somehow Korean movies manage to hit my heart’s weaknesses like Chinese or Japanese movies never do. “JSA” makes me cry every time I see the film, “Silmido” completely broke my heart (shudder), and the movie whose touching story comes closest to “Ode to my father” is “Welcome to Dongmakgol”, another wonderful story with many weaknesses. Bottom line: I don’t care about the naysayers of this movie, for me it was actually an awesome experience.

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.

Kashi-ggot (Fatal, ???)
South Korea 2012, Lee Don-ku, 103′

Sung-gong and his high school “friends” (read: bullies) rape a girl and get away with it. Ten years later he leads a modest life working I a small factory in Seoul. Still hung up on what happened he starts to attend a local evangelical church where he meets the victim who is seemingly happy but struggles with life. As she does not recognise him, they slowly getting closer and his desire for penance leads to an explosion of violence.

TL;DR Kim Ki-Duk meets Park Chan-Wook on a budget.

While ultimately a piece on sin and revenge/repentance it was, although supposedly not deliberately, a good, sometimes funny and always very human of a simple boy who made a horrible and about the effects it had on the life of another person. Most of the time it is easy to feel sympathetic towards him and their subtly evolving relationship but we’re always reminded of what he did and what scars he caused so there is a healthy balance which makes him all the more human, just not a prime example of the species. Stylistically it is mostly unremarkable, often hand-held typical Asian art cinema. The Q&A was quite… interesting. Basically the young director said that if you commit a crime such as rape and do not repent you deserve to die. Starting from this concept the whole story was written: Sung-Gong is such a simple man, so he can become the perfect tool and to become that he must come into contact with a religion, one which highly values repentance and both concepts of revenge and sin, so there you have Evangelical Christianity. He even stated that it is not so much about the sex crime but about the necessity of punishing sins. Not a very charming fellow, people tried more or less subtly to get an answer out of him that was less black-and-white but every answer really boiled down to his extreme view of the matter. It would be interesting to know how he arrived at such a place. As I referred to in the TL;DR he also thanked the two Korean directors for sin and revenge in his credits as they have been both and influence and actually helped him get the movie funded and promoted. Even though I have rather negative feelings about the director and his vision I think his movie was time not wasted and if you like those themes and have run out of films by the directors mentioned above, you might want to look at it.

Go there, play the red carpet stream from 6:30 onwards, look for me. Nyahaha.
In other news: As can be seen in the aforementioned video, Berlin is actually a former German town, occupied by the fangirl battalion of South Korea. There were honestly more Koreans present than any other nationality. Two girls that stood in line before me and then sat next to me seemed to have come from Korea for this…

Saranghanda, saranghaji anneunda (Come Rain, Come Shine, ????, ???? ???)
South Korea 2011, Lee Yoon-ki, 105′

He drives her to the airport, she tells him it’s over, there’s another man. A few days later she is almost done packing, he helps her pack and invites her for a last dinner at their favourite restaurant. A lost cat breaks up the literally downcast day.

Lee Yoon-ki again (for the record: I disagree with the Queen’s review), with a breakup story! I did have high expectations for this, especially after loving My Dear Enemy even more after rewatching it. I wasn’t let down. Although the story wasn’t half as fun, it was in fact 95% pain, I enjoyed that pain very much. While I still enjoy slow movies, I have lost a lot of patience for seemingly pointless, overly long mood-making sequences, because in most cases I have the impression they are used to hide the scriptwriter’s or the director’s flaws. Not here, though: Saranghanda was easily the slowest movie I have watched this year and equally easily the one that made the best use of slow pacing. Most of the time they just shuffle about the house, doing nothing of value, saying nothing. The excellent choice of shots, the absolutely stylish house I totally fell in love with and the realisation that both Im Su-Jong and Hyun Bin are actually worthy actors made the movie a really great experience. Maybe I am connecting too much with the characters, pouring too much of my own feelings and interpretation into this, but I really felt the emotions inside them while they displayed an extremely subtle show, if at all. Also, the comparatively lively scenes with the neighbours produced a nice break of pace with great moments of Awkward. Oh facades, how great you are as a topic. On another note: I very much liked the first take of them driving to the airport, that must have been a bitch to film.
It was not perfect though: for some scenes I would have shaved a couple seconds off, or a minute here and there, asides from these very mild pacing issues however, I was thoroughly “pleased”, if you can call it that.

Certain persons may feel joyful about the fact, that today I watched a lesbian manhwa. (Fun fact I just learned from a Korean variety show: Koreans call both anime and manga manhwa…) Also, I really did not conciously choose to watch that many Korean movies, at least not because of them being Korean.

Jagadangchak: shidaejeongshin kwa hyeonshilchamyeo (Self Referential Traverse: Zeitgeist and Engagement, ????: ???? ? ????)
South Korea 2011, Kim Sun, 73?

Korean police mascot Podori needs a pair of legs and will do everything to achieve his goal. A tale of sex, violence, rats and wet women. Screening precluded by Great Korean News of 2010!

People left in droves. This was the wildest, craziest piece of film I have seen at the Berlinale. IT HAD A BURNING PENIS ON A GIRL IN A POLICE UNIFORM! And rats, cryptocommunist rats. Also, Podori’s own dialogue consisted purely of samples from Korean, Japanese, Chinese or English movies, TV shows, or music. I will not be ashamed to admit, that I most probably didn’t get more than one third of the cultural and political references, but that’s fine really. The fact that almost nothing beyond the superficial craziness was accessible to the foreign audience was to be expected. Other than that it was an untamed display of craftiness and despite the cheap production it seemed like the work of a real professional. The structure of faux propaganda up front (a parody on the fact, that both the last dictator of South Korea and the hated-by-the-director democratically-elected president have used mandatory “news” shorts before film screenings), trailer next (a trailer to a movie the director and his buddies wanted to make but never got the possibility) and main feature after that was also quite handsomely done.

Chang-Pi-Hae (Ashamed, ???)
South Korea 2010, Kim Soo-Hyun, 129?

I will shamelessly copy from the official Berlinale materials, I am somehow unable to come up with a proper description for this one:

Three women talk about love. Jung is preparing an art exhibition. After teaching an art class her attention is drawn to some nude drawings by one of her female students, the somewhat recal citrant Hee-jin. Yoon, the young woman depicted in the drawing, is not only extremely beautiful, there is also something mysterious about her, and one senses, in her presence, that she harbours a story. Jung asks Yoon to pose in the nude for her exhibition project; she agrees and shortly afterwards Jung, Yoon and Hee-jin set off to do some video filming at the beach. And so, by fate or coincidence, three women who couldn’t be more different from each other find themselves brought together on this particular evening. They sit by sea; they drink and they listen to Yoon, who tells them of her lost love. Two women encounter love. Fed up with her dreary, utterly boring life, Yoon decides one night to pretend to commit suicide. As luck would have it, she meets Kang, a young woman who drifts through life earning a living as a pickpocket. Yoon and Kang’s love story begins when the two women are handcuffed to each other. The women manage to escape and, once they have shaken off the police, they kiss for the first time. Shortly afterwards the women move in together and begin to enjoy a carefree life. But their blissful existence is not to last. Kang’s depressing lack of prospects and Yoon’s growing expectations prove too much of a burden for their relationship. Listening to Yoon, Jung and Hee-jin learn a completely different side of love.

Can the setup get even more manhwa? An elusive free-spirited woman roaming through other people’s lives? Long talks about love and stuff in beautifully framed shots? Even short blackouts only showing a novel/speech bubble-like line of text? Straight out of a Josei-manga, totally. That is a compliment, if you’re not sure.
On a technical note, I was thoroughly impressed by the digital equipment the movie was shot on and projected. While I generally like film grain (and dislike the unnatural-though-familiar effect of 24 frames per second), the absolute clarity, sharpness and color on the ridiculously big screen really blew me away. D-Cinema definitely is the future; I do not mourn 35mm if this is its successor.

Imagine a witty opening comment. I had one, I really did, but I completely forgot…

Cheonggyecheon Medley (??????)
South Korea 2010, Park Kelvin Kyung-Kun, 79?

Cheonggyecheon is a small stream and district in central Seoul. After the war, people salvaging scrap metal settled here and in the seventies the whole lifeless dirty stream was covered with an elevated freeway. A few years ago the freeway was torn down and the stream renaturalised, creating a new urban center with coffee shops, galleries and similar places, slowly driving out the small businesses. This documentary shows the daily life and people of a district that will soon completely vanish from the city center.

Machine porn! The beginning was quite slow, with lots of droning machines, a generous helping of digital effects and a voice-over about the director’s identity issues. Quite trippy actually, I know a certain person who would have covered her ears most of the time… From there, it slowly picked up, showing bits of the owners’ work, the generally warm bond between them, eating, drinking and worrying about the coming relocations together. There was also a part about one of the new residents of the area, an artist who needs various metal parts made for his installation, so he goes to the old shops seeking advice and meets competent and versatile shop owners who help him design the exact parts needed. Near the end, we witness the relocation of a shop owner from the old Cheonggyecheon to a new development that looks like a shopping center filled not with clothes or shoes, but the kind of craftsmen and small factories that inhabited old Cheonggyecheon.
Interestingly, while it was nostalgic there was no accusing political undertone, which kind of surprised me. Whether the surprise was positive or negative I have not been able to decide yet.

Bu-dang-geo-rae (????)
South Korea 2010, Ryoo Seung-Wan, 120?

A serial killer case puts the whole nation on edge to the point of the President intervening with police work. The main suspect gets shot which leaves the investigation in a dead end.
The police desperately needs a suspect, so Captain Choi, who’s efficient but less-than-delicate methods left him out of the promotion carousel, is told to produce one, whatever the cost. Unfortunately, prosecutor Joo learns of their plot and, while being even more corrupt than them, does everything to foil their plan as his benefactor and the police director’s benefactor are enemies. All this leads to more and more open and blatant violations of the law until everything spirals out of control.

“I know the comedy parts often rely on language, so for full enjoyment please look for a person in the audience who looks Korean and if they laugh, you can laugh too!” – The director, just before the screening…

This was the Gurren Lagann of live action films! Great, polished visuals, loud dramatic soundtrack, and an unprecedented level of badassness and incredibly typically Korean alpha male dickery. And because it was totally over the top, while pretending not to be ironic it was an incredibly fun ride. The director had the intention to show how power struggles in corrupt systems never play out without unexpected collateral damage and how much of a cancer this kind of dishonest behaviour is to society. To this end he had, quite realistically, the least experienced “players” receive the harshest punishment and there was not one clean character, everyone got their hands dirty with something at some point…
It is great to see how well the message came through in a movie with so much entertainment value.
On a side note: I have never, ever seen a movie that was not Polish but felt so much like one. Change the place, the names, the actors and you would’ve had one of the big Polish action thrillers of the 90s…