Um Convidado Muito Especial

What "Ad Lib Night" accomplishes in its simplicity is nothing short of exceptional. The delicate minimalism employed in Lee Yoon-ki's third feature is tremendously absorbing and is just handled with immense grace. The stealthily devastating isolation of big city living is evoked by a mysterious doppelganger's acceptance to stand beside a dying man in proxy of his runaway daughter. While its key sequences involve the enchantingly doleful stranger, her identity is the least important aspect of the film. This gesture of good faith, which spans a single night in the household, becomes a gentle and emotional narrative that taps into the pulse of young adults, scurrying to depart from their familial tethers and seeking independence. It develops an intricate, underlying tapestry of shame, guilt, responsibility and maturation. Lee's camera acts as a silent, vacant observer. With great clarity and poignancy the camera weaves in and out of conversations held between the family members gathered around the deathbed. The streamlined economy of his static camera-work witnesses the different dynamics and insecurities of the close extended family members through their dialogue and (or lack of) physical expressions. The mood remains plaintive and avoids the trappings of a melodrama by dividing the focus onto the different energies of each character dealing with the situation at hand. The bittersweet melancholy resonating from its final scenes ruminates on the bonds we take for granted and the kinships we have lost.

Ad-Lib Night is the third film by Lee Yoon Ki and this film falls well into the traditions that began with This Charming Girl, being a rather intimate portrait, a unique aesthetic that utilizes hand-held camera and close-ups, with depth of field framing and a really bold use of natural lighting. In fact, this film fits in Dogma 95 certification for all but perhaps two or three of the requirements (4:3 and director crediting, off the top of my head).

Ad-Lib Night explores the story of a young woman who is convinced to play the part of a dying man's estranged daughter. Going from her life in the city to a rural town, she encounters the man's neighbors, acquaintances and relatives and we get to watch, with her, as all the dysfunction in the gathered creeps out and how this affects our "guest", as she struggles to perform her role. I think the potent thing about the story is that, while the actual scope of the story is limited to a several hours in a night, we get to be so intimate and real with the characters. And further impressive is just how realistically all the characters are written and how they act and react. This is further enhanced by the directors selected style of shooting, which puts us right up close to the characters using a hand-held camera, further making it seem like we are there--and with limited lighting, so it seems even more like the actual spaces we sit in on.

The performances are solid and I was really impressed by how Lee uses space (temporally, where no plot-intensive action is occurring) in the film to explore characters and still somehow drive forward their development. There is no score for the film and that further enhances the "reality" of the production. Despite the limited lighting used, I found the look of the film to be quite compelling overall, really enhancing what the film is going for.

This is not a high concept film. It's an exploration of characters and a small community, in particular, and the interpersonal problems that exist all coming out in the wake of the last days of one of their members. We, along with the young woman, get drawn in as outsiders, but as we with her, we can start drawing parallels with our own lives. So our protagonist not only acts as a surrogate for the absent daughter of the film, but as a surrogate for our own viewing of the film. And in many ways, this very understated approach works extremely well. It's not for everyone, but this is a potent art film that I have to recommend to those who love these intimate stories. 8/10.

This is a story about a young girl who accepts a strange proposal from two unknown guys: to travel from Seoul to a small rural town for dealing with the imminent decease of a man who could be her father. Although she is not his daughter, she looks pretty close like her and the guys don't have more time to find the real one. What it follows is the resume of some hours (less than one day) in the life of a family waiting for the death of one of the members. A mourning home from the point of view of a stranger (the girl) that it's also our point of view. In that kind of brief but forced and stressful coexistence, people feel sad but hungry, drink over the top and talk over the top. People get nervous and complain, some human miseries are shown but family bonds remain after all. Somebody is dying, his relatives are cooking grilled meat and discussing about soups. Is that bad, or is it simplely human? And now we have the girl. Who is she? Why did she accept that kind of weird proposal? The last minutes give us the answer, so austere as melancholic, like Seoul in the early morning of a Sunday. The lost and lonely soul of a young woman has broken the routine of an unsatisfactory and empty life during less than 24 hours. Giving something for nothing to a family that it's not her family, trying to find some meaning to a life without sense and the absence of parents who really care where she is and what she is doing. In its docudrama style, simple and direct, sometimes very realist, sometimes nicer than life as only cinema can express and sublimate life, this movie is not for everybody but it will satisfy its target.

Two guys run into this woman in Seoul and being convinced she is the runaway daughter of an old man on his death bed, they start talking to her. They had been looking for her for a long time, so even though she denies being the girl, they ask to come back the country-side with them and pretend that she is the daughter, to grant the dying man his last wish. I think what stuck me the most was the picture that this movie painted of a family in grieving over a dying loved one. It seemed genuine, it seemed authentic. It wasn't overdone, and the situation wasn't exploited just to squeeze a few tears out of the viewers. Also, it could have just as easily have been an American family in the same situation. I guess the subject matter is just so universal, if you've ever lost a loved one, you can relate. It was an interesting glimpse into South Korean rural life. I found that I relate to this setting a lot more than I would had the whole movie been set in the big city. The movie had an original concept, and a good story. It delivered. I give it a 7.

I first put this one on years ago, got bored and frustrated by the entire first half of the film being some blokes trying to talk a girl into pretending to be someone else and how she could pull off convincing others of it, all the while wondering what woman in her right mind would drive off into the countryside with two strangers?

I put it on again the other night because somebody wanted to see it, and within 30 minutes, I was considering washing the toilet or doing the ironing, which would've been a vastly more productive use of my time and quite possibly, also more fun.

I can't stress enough how dull and ridiculous I find this film. My mate couldn't get into it either and ended up leaving early.

One for die-hard Korean drama fans only... though they'd likely have to pretend they enjoyed it more than they actually did, as such saps normally do.