Night and Day

This movie is so boring that it took me weeks to finish it! Every time I started playing it I couldn't stand for more than half an hour. I must mention that I do not have ADHD and have probably seen more than a thousand movies in my life. I've endured all kinds of movies during my 38-year-old existence and believe me when I tell you that this is literally the only one that I actually regret having seen. I wouldn't recommend this piece of cr** to my worst enemy!

Living our everyday lives, we rarely imagine such an occasion (save for some dismissible bad dreams) that in instant would take away all of our routine attachments in the familiar world around us -- all those minute rituals and conventions, duties and honors, comfort and confidence. What would then be left inside us, what would emerge, would we accept ourselves?

While a tourist experience gives some idea, it never crosses the border line that is inside ourselves. There's always a mental insurance that we draw for ourselves before departure, the required return-ticket. So too often the tourists can be spotted always inside their bubble, filled with so supporting homeland air. Take that ticket away, burst the bubble, fill the lungs with the foreign mix, put a question mark in homeland! Chilling prospect of a new life, unwanted blank canvas?

Something on such scale brought Sung-nam, the protagonist of 'Night and Day', into Paris. Not a random destination for him, still a forced one. While the director Hong Sang-soo presents a certain Korean regard, not much would be "lost in translation" should that be applied to the being under any skin.

A horny pursuit of familiar, a fearful fight with loneliness all bring about the image of a bird beyond the reach from its nest. Our confused protagonist makes his choice, yet keeps his proverbial eye, arm, and un-cut ear. Through these sweet songs of Sirens, we must hear the hopeful bells of forgiveness.

If all this appears too cloudy, so it really is! One can see many shapes in the clouds. I personally took out for myself that I should not be tempted and compare my loved one to whoever might be (and certainly will be) prettier, smarter, sexier or appealing as long as we find home in our love. OK, that was an after-144minute-thought.

But seriously, you're still at home, so BRING YOUR REFLECTIVE MOOD TO THE SHOW!

This movie won't really appeal to many people. It's not meant to be mainstream, don't expect it to be all out entertaining. It's the complete opposite. The movie shows you a Korean in a strange country for him.

Since I had the pleasure of living "next door" to a Korean student in Austria, where I got to live through a few of the things that are shown here, I was kinda prepared of what would happen or maybe even not happen. Let's say, since I had long discussions with him, I could tell what was going in our protagonists head here. Well I guess some will not really "click" with the guy (it is indeed a bit difficult to be honest) ... and if you're not down with him, you will hate the movie (fact). Prepare yourself to see a drama, that is just like life itself ...

Long and inexplicably motivated film from the director of "Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors" and "Woman on the Beach", played largely in one shot one scene, with image variation derived from zooming and panning. Beethoven under the captions, hand lettered on silk, signals that it's a serious work.

Artist (he draws clouds) Yeong-ho Kim had to flee Korea for France. We find him impoverished in Paris, sharing an eleven bed room with fellow nationals and making weepy cell 'phone calls to his wife back home. He becomes involved with three women from the Korean expat. community. Despite the fact that our rumpled hero gets interchangeable, appealing women pregnant (his trip to the Pharmacie is rendered ineffective by not knowing the word for condom) there's no skin and licking the exposed toes of the lady of his choice is as raunchy as it gets.

A closer reading might tell us something about Koreans abroad but the incentive isn't there to examine the lengthy piece that closely.

Much taking coffee in street front cafes. The action is played mainly in undistinguished Paris streetscapes, though we do pan off for a shot of Invalides at one point.

This movie about a 40-ish Korean fellow on the lam in Paris is not for everyone. Some will find it slow and rambling. The protagonist meets a lot of Koreans in Paris, including romantic encounters, as he ambles around Paris, taking it one day at a time. He is an artist who specializes in cloud-scapes, perhaps symbolic of his hazy aspirations, unreliable pronouncements , and lack of solid grounding. It is reminiscent of episodic French new wave films (some of Godard's work) as well as Rohmer. We broke up the viewing into three evenings--a good way of moving through it. I am not sure we fully understood it relying on the subtitles--there was stuff we did not "get" that other viewers who can follow the Korean dialog might appreciate.