KOFFIA 2012: The Front Line (고지전, Gojijeon) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

Before getting into a discussion about Jang Hoon’s much-ballyhooed new feature The Front Line, I feel that I should mention that over the years I have had a troubled relationship with war films.  I have seen all kinds, from different eras, different countries, detailing different fights, and espousing all sorts of different points of view.  On a cold Sunday afternoon, there isn’t a whole lot that can beat a repeat viewing of seminal classics like David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1956), John Sturges’ The Great Escape (1963), or Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 (1953).  Those are actually all POW (Prisoner of War) films but there is a great wealth of others that I can always return to, including: Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition trilogy (1959-1961), Kon Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) or HBO’s 10-part mini-series Band of Brothers (2001).

When the elements fall into place, a good war film is one of the most engaging types of entertainment across any medium but that correct balance is a difficult thing to achieve.  War films differ from other genres as they are naturally rooted in spectacle, feature little to no romance or indeed female protagonists, and must frequently sacrifice characters on the battlefield.  What’s more, rather than following a personal trajectory, the main thrust of the narrative is often consumed by a story far greater than the leads that we are to bond with on screen.

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KBO: Neighbors Tops Korea-Heavy Chart (08/24-08/26, 2012)

Neighbors Tops Korea-Heavy Chart

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Neighbors	8/22/12	31.10%	780,556	1,094,081	600
2	The Grand Heist	8/8/12	20.10%	537,099	4,106,828	515
3	The Thieves	7/25/12	19.80%	513,409	12,094,680	544
4	R2B: Return to Base	8/15/12	6.80%	182,718	1,059,543	331
5	Total Recall (us)	8/15/12	6.60%	172,453	1,111,574	321
6	Step Up 4 (us)	8/15/12	6.50%	164,872	672,959	269
7	Sammy's Adventures 2 (be)	8/1/12	2.60%	71,952	1,401,327	244
8	Animals United (ge)	8/8/12	1.10%	33,674	275,373	115
9	The Dark Knight Rises (us)	7/19/12	1.30%	29,475	6,359,420	81
10	Red Lights (us)	8/23/12	1.10%	29,341	38,204	197

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KOFFIA 2012: The Client (의뢰인, Eui-roi-in) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

There are few things more satisfying than a well-performed and thoughtfully structured courtroom drama. I for one have pleasantly idled away many a Sunday afternoon whisked away into the heady wood-paneled halls of justice. The beauty of legal dramas or thrillers is that by way of their conceit they are already confined, for the most part, to one location and as viewers we accept this fact. More than most genres, with courtroom films we largely know what we’re getting ourselves into.

So what makes these films so popular when they are so constrained by their design? Their narratives typically do not require the presence of too many characters and often eschew subplots which may otherwise seem contrived. This makes them quite lean and generally pretty easy to follow and be drawn in by. For the most part the stories will be determined by the answer to one question: will the case be won or lost? But the most engaging thing about courtroom dramas is the bitter contest of right vs. wrong. We are compelled to deliberate over the evidence and arguments presented by both sides (though we are often led by the filmmaker’s guiding hand) which in effect means that our viewing experience sees us living vicariously through the jury represented on screen. Some of the genre’s best examples are fully aware of this fact and use it to their advantage, such as the slippery and claustrophobic moralizing of Twelve Angry Men (1956).

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KOFFIA 2012: The Day He Arrives (북촌 방향, Book-chon Bang-hyang) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

As far as the critical discourse of Korean cinema goes, few filmmakers have a more commanding presence than Hong Sang-soo, whose flowing narratives often feel like chapters in the same grand story.  In a sense, his body of work reminds me of some of the 19th century’s most prolific French writers, such as Honoré de Balzac and Émile Zola whose main outputs consisted of The Human Comedy and the Rougon-Macquart cycles, which consisted of 91 and 20 volumes respectively.  In these exceedingly rich opuses, the French wordsmiths crafted dense worlds, which mirrored the societies they lived in and repeated the same themes and concerns through similar stories and with large casts of revolving characters.

Hong’s output is much less concerned with the high-flown dramatics of the far-reaching stories of these previously mentioned collections.  Indeed his films, especially for an uninitiated viewer, offer a vague semblance of banality and rarely fall into the trap of narrative twists or plot contrivances, choosing to focus on the everyday rather than the extremes of life.  What he shares with Balzac and Zola is a keen interest in realism.  For the French writers this style was labeled naturalism and often explored social injustice and the inescapable force of heredity in the shaping of human characters.  While Hong’s films do not share those specific traits, they do exhibit a similarly acute infatuation with repetition.  People make the same choices and mistakes over and over again.  It’s a funny thing about reviews of Hong’s work but more than most other filmmakers, his whole career tends to be put under the microscope, likely because his films so resemble one another. 

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KOFFIA 2012: Bleak Night (파수꾼, Pa-soo-ggoon) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

It’s amazing to witness what can be done with little resources and in 2011, a year filled with high-falutin, hollow, and very disappointing blockbusters, there were many films that did just that. One in particular managed to do the most with the least. The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has been training some of the peninsula’s best talent since the 1980s, including Bong Joon-ho, Im Sang-soo, and Kim Tae-gyun, and these days, as it produces four feature-length projects per year, it looks set to develop an even larger pool of talent. Not long ago I discussed the importance of Korean film schools in a piece on the Korean National University of Arts (K’Arts) short Metamorpheses. The technical competence of Korean films is due in no small part to the high quality film academies in the country and this becomes only more evident now that the student-produced shorts and features from these institutions gain wider exposure.

Bleak Night is one of KAFA’s student features and going into the film it’s hard to say that knowing this didn’t completely change the way I looked at it. I’m generally not a fan of student films and not just because of low production values and a lack of experience.  Oftentimes they are pretentious, lazy, and/or cocky and rather than being diamonds in the rough, they are frequently vanity projects from people who either don’t have what it takes or have no intention of trying to make a career out of filmmaking. Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, this is the purpose that film societies at college universities serve and the world is all the better for it, however I would rather not subject myself to these less than enticing offerings. I also speak from experience, as I too was one of these cocky student filmmakers in my Dublin salad days.

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KOFFIA 2012: Late Blossom (그대를 사랑합니다, Geu-dae-leul Sa-rang-hab-ni-da) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

It’s easy to forget sometimes how rigid the rules can be concerning the technical aspects behind the making of a film.  When done right, everything you see on screen (or hear) is exactly so for a reason.  The rich tapestry of mise-en-scene (basically everything but the dialogue) captures our attention by cleverly drawing us to certain pieces of information.  Through cinematography, sound, production design, costumes, and editing it seeks to tell us a story.  It is the difference between a novel, in which we must imagine all these details, and a film, which seeks to show us a world conceived by its filmmakers.

If you take the time to consider what shots are used in a film, you can see (most of the time) a reason behind their selection.  These little parcels of visual information tell part of the narrative.  There are many choices a director or cinematographer can make when framing a shot and each of these decisions will affect how the story is told.  An example of this is from what angle to frame a character: you can shoot from above, from below, or straight on.  In Late Blossom, which features some exceptional photography, this choice is an important one.  It says a lot about how the film views its characters, the majority of which are senior citizens. 

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The 6th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CinDi) Preview

Part of MKC's Coverage of the 6th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival.

This weekend I will have the opportunity to attend the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival for the first time. It may not be one of the biggest Korean film festivals but it has a stellar reputation and is very well-attended. Many industry folk make the trip as it takes place in their backyard, in Apgujeong, Seoul.

The festival focuses on the new era of digital filmmaking and while its scope is international, the premiere lineup is the Asian Competition section. Young filmmakers, who are trailblazers in the new digital arts, are favored at this particular event.

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WKR: The Thieves, R2B and KOFFIA 2012 (08/18-08/24, 2012)

A number of reviews for new Korean films The Thieves and R2B: Return to Base and lots of coverage for the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia, which is currently taking place.

CURRENT FILMS

R2B: Return to Base

(Film Journal, August 23, 2012)

(Hanguk Yeonghwa August 19, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, August 22, 2012)

(Twitch, August 21, 2012)

The Thieves

(Modern Korean Cinema, August 20, 2012)

(Variety, August 21, 2012)

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KOFFIA 2012: King of Pigs (돼지의 왕, Dwaejiui Wang) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

(by Peter Gutiérrez)

I’m not sure what the current cultural status of bullying in is South Korea these days – are public policy steps being taken to curtail it, as is the case here in the U.S.? – but certainly anyone who has followed Korean cinema knows that it has provided the thematic backbone to films which cut across several genres. I’m a bit partial to A Bloody Aria (Won Shin-yeon, 2006), and Yeun Sang-ho’s The King of Pigs shares something of its beyond-bleak tone and emotionally raw approach. Just don’t look for any of the former’s dark humor: Yuen has crafted that rare film that effectively plunges head-first into the abyss and never really allows the audience to come up for air, let alone laughs.

So don’t expect a slow and “tasteful” build to the film’s often unforgettable moments of psychological and physical violence. Right away we see our point-of-view character Kyung-Min experience a form of workplace bullying… and then immediately turn around and take out his feelings of shame and powerlessness on his wife in a dynamic that strongly recalls that of James Joyce’s classic Dubliners short story “Counterparts.” But can all of his present-tense troubles really account for the way that Kyung-Min seems to be so haunted? This question is soon answered as he meets up with middle school classmate Jong-Suk for the first time in years, and it becomes clear to us that something happened back in their early adolescence that shaped both men… something that neither seems eager to discuss directly.

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JIMFF 2012: Morente (Morente, flamenco y Picasso, Spain) 2011

Part of MKC's coverage of the Jecheon Intl. Music & Film Festival.

I’m very glad I saw the Spanish documentary Morente, as it introduced me to a wonderful style of music that I was not very familiar beforehand but particularly because it brought the formidable artist Enrique Morente to my attention: a man with a beautiful voice who sings with heartrending passion. However, aside from its resplendent, larger-than-life protagonist, I have to chalk this documentary up as a failure. It is poorly made and worse it comes off as indulgent.

Enrique Morente was a flamenco singer who had reached the pinnacle of his art. At the time of the making of this film, which incidentally were his last days (he passed away shortly after the project wrapped), he is attempting to breathe his art into the words of Picasso, Spain’s most revered artist.

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KOFFIA 2012: Metamorpheses (변신이야기, 2011) and the Impact of Film Schools on Korean Cinema

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

One of the aspects of Korean cinema which strikes people the most once they become acquainted with it, is the highly sophisticated level of the production values.  From a technical standpoint, Korean films are often on par or even above their Hollywood counterparts:  cinematography, sound, production design, editing, and even special effects are deftly handled with skill and care.  Wondering how this is the case for a national industry that had been until relatively recently a marginal one is a worthwhile question.  The answer therein lies in examining how a cultural and economic climate fostered this type of change.

During the intense state-driven globalization of a newly democratized Korea in the 1990s, which was known as seghewha, the cultural sector was heavily promoted.  With the creation of a few different motion picture laws that, among other things, provided tax breaks for investment in the film industry, the chaebol, which were large corporations such as Daewoo and Samsung, got involved in film production.  Just as you would modernize any other industry, the film industry’s production standards had to be quickly brought up to speed due in large part to the chaebol’s injection of significant amounts of capital.  However, it wasn’t just money that led to today’s technical proficiency.  I would argue that perhaps more than anything, it was the education of a skilled below-the-line workforce that contributed to the phenomenon.

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KOFFIA 2012: In Another Country (다른 나라에서, Dareun Naraeseo) 2012

Part of MKC's coverage of the 3rd Korean Film Festival in Australia (previously published).

Quick disclaimer before barreling on with my discussion of Hong Sang-soo’s latest: This is the first film I’ve seen in a theater since my move to Korea and I saw it without subtitles and it must be said that my knowledge of Korean is fairly limited.  That said, over two thirds of In Another Country is in English and I was able to more or less follow the rest as well.  Undoubtedly there were some things I didn’t pick up on, so in the interest of full disclosure I thought I’d mention it.

Clearly, the most remarkable thing about Hong’s 13^th feature is the presence of French screen legend Isabelle Huppert in the lead role.  This fact was picked up on by many global news outlets and gave the film some more recognition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, versus last year when Hong’s previous feature The Day He Arrives was screened.  It may also have been what landed it in the main competition.  However, while it was well received, it was left out during the closing night’s awards ceremony.

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