Right Now, Wrong Then

This film won the Golden Leopard (Best Film award) at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival. By mistake, a film director arrives in a town a day early to attend a screening of one of his films. With time to kill, he strikes up a conversation with an aspiring painter who he meets in a temple and they spend the rest of the day together. Although he finds her attractive, she is considerably younger than him and neither of them are particularly outgoing. A bit like Sliding Doors or Kieslowski's Blind Chance, the film splits into two different versions of what happens over the next 24 hours but, unlike those two films, the outcome depends not so much on chance but on how the main character chooses to behave. Any further info would inevitably contain spoilers so let's just say that it reminded me of some of Erich Roemer's films and is a sort of moral tale. Whether or not you will like Right Now, Wrong Then will probably depend on what you think of the dialogue, which pretty much dominates (there is not much action and little in the way of visuals or soundtrack). In my view, it is almost a really good film but the script needed sharpening up, as my attention started wandering off more than once. Perhaps a bit more humour and a slightly faster pace would have helped, However, it is a thought-provoking film and I found it ultimately satisfying when it ended, which is why I give it 7/10.

Contrary to the many Korean films I have seen lately, in which the originality, the creativity, the excellence of the stories and the great representations generally prevail, in this film all these aspects fell short of my expectations. I expected a lot more, not least because the little synopsis I read about the film was quite promising. In recent times, this was the first Korean film that deceived me. I did not feel special empathy for any character and found the performances at a level below what is normal for Korean actors and actresses.

Right Now, Wrong Then is a film of two distinct halves. In 2 days of the life of a filmmaker, Ham Cheon-soo, in town a day early for a screening of his latest work at a local film festival. He meets a younger woman, Yoon Hee-Jeong, and immediately falls for her. She's an artist, and he views and comments on her work, then they go out to dinner where they drunkenly bear their souls. It results in an invitation to a friend's small party where a revelation embarrasses Ham to the point where they part ways on a sour note. He attends his film to a small crowd, conducts a hungover Q&A, and retires, walking away from the town for good. Roll title card "Right Now" rather than "Right Then." The film literally repeats from the beginning, erasing the first half. Like Groundhog Day but only a once-over, we get every scene again but from a slightly different wishful approach.

This second time the couple are honest, unlike the first time where Ham tries too hard to impress and Yoon retreats. Again, they fall in love, but given Ham admits to already being married, their feelings are mutual and emotional without being sexual. He may embarrass himself once more at the aforementioned dinner, but it does not result in a cruel parting, instead drawing them closer. It's a quaint experiment given the relaxed tone. The first half on its own is not a movie, and neither is the second. They're co-dependent to give the narrative meaning, but it's far from cinematic in tone. It's a filmmaker's revisionism of what could have been a perfect evening had the characters acted suitably. It's honest, rather than romantic – though the chemistry still bubbles in the air – and it's utterly bittersweet, in a similar vein to Before Sunrise, but strictly not Before Sunset.

It's my first film from Korean director Hong Sang-soo and ostensibly from his fans and critics, Right Now Wrong Then is firmly his style – including the Woody Allen-esque romance between an older creative similar to the director himself, and a pretty younger woman. The atmosphere is very modest with simple photography, though Sang-soo does punctuate some scenes with careful zooms. It's very easy-going filmmaking, and its concept makes the second half easier to watch because you know exactly where it's heading as it retraces steps while you have a sharp eye out for the subtle changes that make all the differences, but it doesn't beg you to keep an eye on every detail. Those differences aren't grandstanding though the narrative is clearly motivated by them. Sometimes a scene will repeat its approach entirely despite the previous scene being radically revised. It's trying to be very nuanced rather than having a 'sliding doors/butterfly effect' where causality makes the universe shift places.

Instead, the outcome isn't much different but the overall feeling is utterly converted. It's all down to the performances of its two leads, Jeong Jae-Yeong and Kim Min-Hee, to create that tone with their chemistry, who were most likely shooting both halves back to back, location by location. In both halves, Ham is still a jerk with a kind of irritating laugh, but all the characters are deeply human even if Sang-soo doesn't peel back their layers every time. There's a big heart buried in its very slight execution. However, Right Now Wrong Then is not necessarily about how honesty is a better policy – though Ham's harsh analysis of Hee-Jeong's art in the second half remains a sting that takes a long time to settle – but it's about how it's possible to love again. In this case, love doesn't have to be a complete turbulous affair, but it can still be a fulfilling and life-affirming night if approached accordingly.

8/10

Maybe it's because I haven't seen any of Sang-soo's other films but Right Now, Wrong Then left me cold and unimpressed. I can see the appeal this film has but I personally found the film a tad annoying. It feels more like a South Korean remake of The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby that admittedly was more interesting than The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. I was also surprised to see Lady Hideko here. Kim Min- Hee is one of few things that are great about the film, even if she wasn't as impressive as she was in The Handmaiden. If you like the director you might like Right Now, Wrong Then but I was overall just left cold with the film.

How many times have you fallen in love with the creation of a hitherto unknown director from the first frame of the first film of his you watch? I confess that it happens to me quite rarely. This is what happened from the first scene that opens 'Right Now, Wrong Then', the 2016 film by Korean director Sang-soo Hong. Korean cinema has given me many reasons of satisfaction in recent years, but I had never encountered a film by Hong before. I understand that he writes and directs very personal films, all set in his own universe, on average about one film each year, in the style and pace of Woody Allen's productions. 'Right Now, Wrong Then' is a simple, randomly picked story from life, and at the same time a story about cinema and art, not only because its hero is a director (alter ego of the author?), but also because the way the film is structured is a subtle commentary on the art of making films and a starting point for thoughts and discussions.

The story. Jae-yeong, a well-known director of 'art' films, arrives due to a mis-communication a day earlier in a peripheral city where he is going to meet with spectators after their watching his film. Trying to 'kill time', he wanders through Buddhist temples and meets Min-hee, a young woman, a little disoriented, a little painter, whom he invites first to a coffee and then to a sushi dinner accompanied by a lot of soju liquor, to end the evening with a meeting at a cafe with the young woman's friends. A discreet dialogue begins between the two, followed by a hesitant idyll. Love story or flirtation? The viewer has the opportunity to ask this question twice, because exactly in the middle of the film the story begins again, with the same characters and small changes.

The beauty of the film consists exactly in the differences of nuances between the two variants of the same script, with the same characters, filmed in the same places, saying approximately the same lines. And yet, the story is different, the light falls differently, the feelings of the characters differ, the emotions of the spectators change. 'Right Now, Wrong Then' is a meditation on life in which the details and moods of the moment can play an overwhelming role, but it is also a brilliant cinematic exercise proving that the director's vision and nuances added by actors to their characters can lead to more different movies based on the same script. Sang-soo Hong is a talented director who masters all the details of his craft and has assimilated the lessons of the great filmmakers. In this film we feel some of the influences of Yasujirô Ozu (long shots, some with a fixed camera, making room for the psychology of the characters) and Hsiao-Hsien Hou (the urban anxiety), but the film also has a clear Korean and personal imprint of the director in the way in which the characters fit into their social environment. The actors play with a wonderful finesse and depth, highlighting the common features and psychological variations of the two variants of their heroes. 'Right Now, Wrong Then' is a film that boldly experiments in structure but retains an elegant classic in the way it is made. I was charmed.