"Homage", a movie about movies [Doichiro Enoki's Akasatana Movie Vol.23]

For some reason, I've always liked movies about movies. For example, the sentimental feel of the movie theater movies ` `The Last Show '' (1971) and `` Cinema Paradiso '' (1989) is irresistible, and movies like `` With Love in the Movies: American Nights '' (1973) are irresistible. I also love that it gives a glimpse of the liveliness of the filming location.

It could simply mean that people who love movies are making movies. This “I love movies” resonates and resonates with that “I love movies”. It doesn't necessarily have to be Peter Bogdanovich or Truffaut. “ Kirishima, quit club activities ” (12) “ One Cut of the Dead I also like the comical depictions like ``(18).

However, I don't think that "people who love movies are making movies" is the same as "movies are really good." Some kind of "movies about movies" are very bitter. In other words, he is talking about the film in a self-referential way. There are some directors who can no longer face movies at the point where they think, ``Movies are really good.'' The days when movies could just be content with telling a story may be long gone.

I think the Korean movie ``Homage'' (21), which I will be introducing this time, is a typical example of this. It's a very good movie about movies. This is not a simple story. The movie talks about the movie in a self-referential way.

That's not to say it's difficult. The main character is Ji-wan, a film director who is not blessed with a hit film. She laments that her and her producer friend's careers are on the rocks. With no prospects for his next film, he takes on the job of restoring old movies. It was a film called ``Female Judge'' (62) by Hong Jae-won, a female director from the 1960s. While searching for missing films and scripts, Ji-wan learns how isolated and suffering the ``first female director in the Korean film industry'' was. The existence of a ``female director'' who no longer exists in this world becomes increasingly real. The trajectory of his predecessor's survival begins to illuminate Jiwan's own future.

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Director Hong Jae-won is said to be modeled after a real film director. The movie ``Female Judge,'' which appears in ``Homage,'' can be viewed on YouTube. Well, the title ``Female Judge'' is symbolically fraught with gender issues in the first place, and today a ``judge'' would be considered a ``judge'' regardless of whether it is a man or a woman. This is the crux of this movie. If you think about it, the terms ``female director'' and ``actress'' were commonly used until recently. Nowadays, people are finally calling them ``directors'' and ``actors'' regardless of their gender.

Categorizations such as ``female judge'' instead of ``judge'' or ``female writer'' instead of ``writer'' imply that it is special for a woman to hold that job. The same could be said of ``female directors'' and ``female conductors.'' How cramped is that? Unless we resist the constraints and struggle against the inconvenience, we will not be able to correct the imbalance in which the word ``female'' is placed before the job category. Pioneers will always be lonely. Since I am the first woman to do so, there is no one around me who understands me (in the truest sense of the word).

The appeal of ``Homage'' is the process of reliving the loneliness of ``Korea's first female director'' while working on film restoration over time. The way her personality gradually emerges is like a mystery. It has a similar nuance to detectives and detectives retracing the footsteps of a ``murdered woman'' and getting closer to the truth. In a sense, Hong Jae-won can also be said to be a ``woman killed'' by the times. Although she was blessed with talent, she hit a wall in her career because she was a woman.

The main character, Lee Jeong-eun (who played the role of the housekeeper in ` `Parasite' ') is very good. While the pioneering director Hong Jae-won was stylish and extremely talented, the modern Ji-wan is a dull middle-aged woman. He is stuck at work and has no position at home. The premise is, ``Today's female directors aren't very cool.'' For the audience, he is a familiar character, like a familiar neighbor.

Is it because Jiwan's next work hasn't been decided because he lacks talent, or is it a gender barrier? That point is not made clear in the movie. Well, this may be related.

For example, during the golden age of Japanese cinema, when program pictures were being produced at a rapid pace, there were times when films shot with the intention of being side-by-side, with great brilliance. A novelist acquaintance says, ``There aren't any comedies with that kind of momentum these days.''

``Nowadays, it's difficult to make a single movie, so sometimes five years pass with one project in hand, so it gets rotten in that time,'' he says. Well, not all works are like that, but I can understand the nuances. If Jiwan from ``Homage'' was in a situation where he could create plenty of work, his output would be completely different. In this world, there are such things as ``masterpieces that were accidentally created by force.'' Being blessed with Being There is very important.

As a side note, I found it interesting that in Korea, old film was apparently used to decorate hats. Ji-eun finds a hat that had been left in storage, and pieces together the film that was used to decorate it to restore the missing cut. Those details were also very interesting.

Text: Ichiro Enoki

Born in 1959. Born in Akita Prefecture. Debuted in a commercial magazine with ``Takarajima'' in 1980 while studying at Chuo University. Since then, he has serialized columns and essays in various magazines, and continues to this day. Also active on radio and television. Twitter @ichiroenokido

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"Homage"

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