“The Day After” The addictive movie world of South Korean talented director Hong Sang-soo and lead actress Kim Min-hee The Truth of life oozes out between the lines of a useless love story

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2018.06.13Naoto Mori

``Sorekara,'' a play about bad men's dirty talk and quarrel , The Day After is also a homage to Soseki.

Now, Hong Sang-soo is in great form (?) in many ways, but the film ``The Day After'' (released on June 9th), which is at the forefront of the group of films released in Japan this time, was submitted to the competition section of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Although it is a familiar Hong Sang-soo song, it is a masterpiece that somehow feels next-level, and as it reaches its unique maturity and sophistication, it also has the taste of an adult. The image is neat monochrome. In Hong Sang-soo's work, the cinematography by Kim Hyung-gu, who also showed beautiful monochrome in `` The Next Morning Is a Stranger '' (2011), is wonderful.

Let's briefly explain the contents. The main stage is a small, privately run publishing company. The president is a man named Bong-wan (Kwon Hae-hyo) who is also a famous literary critic. Through the introduction of a university professor, a woman who aspires to be a novelist ends up working as a secretary-type employee. Kim Min-hee plays the heroine named Ah-reum.

However, on the afternoon of his first day at work, Bong-wan's wife (Cho Yoon-hee) comes in and Ah-reum is suddenly beaten up. Apparently Areum's predecessor had an affair with the president. And Areum was mistakenly thought to be his mistress. Why am I like this? Ah-reum is furious, but soon Being There-sook (Kim Sae-byuk), Bong-wan's true lover, shows up...

In just one day, Ah-reum becomes embroiled in a quarrel between a no-good man and a mean-spirited woman. Hong Sang-soo captures this with a simple touch, as if observing the ecology of insects. For some time now, it has become a trademark of his writing style to use the zoom function to get closer to the person without breaking the cut, but this method feels as if he was secretly filming with a smartphone.

A humorous emotion is created between the lines of this strangely lighthearted narrative. Considering Hong Sang-soo's personal life, it can be said to be a kind of self-deprecating gag.

If you just look at the surface, this is a simple romantic comedy. However, the stupidity of the characters oozes out The Truth of some unscrupulous people. For example, a man who is considered intelligent and commands a certain amount of respect in the world reveals his childish, ugly egoism. Beneath the chaotic patterns of men and women, glimpses of resignation, wisdom, or emptiness appear. Hong Sang-soo's style is to condense and discover the helpless human deeds in everyday scenes.

The title ``The Day After'' is an homage to Natsume Soseki's novel `` The Day After, '' and the Korean version of the translated book also appears as an item in the play. Soseki's ``The Day After'' is about a useless intellectual called a high-ranking wanderer - a young man (nearly 30 years old) who lives on his wealthy family's money and whose job is to read and worry (in other words, he is unemployed). However, this is a story about a love triangle where a friend is in love with his wife. Hong Sang-soo's ``The Day After'', which depicts a love triangle between old men and the misfortune of a beautiful woman who fits perfectly with them, is like a parody of Soseki's work, which emphasizes the petty nature of the love triangle.

What makes this movie so great is the epilogue-like punch line. I would like you to check this out by actually watching the movie. ``That's just how life is,'' I can only say with a pale face, a hopeless misunderstanding. I can't help but feel faint at the fact that the disconnect between people is so obvious and so deep-rooted. Is life so heavy that it swallows up the brightness, or is it so light that you can't bear it?

A collection of new gems showcasing Hong Sang-soo's uniquely deepened style.

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