I was in shock when I watched Woman Is the Future of Man, like a rock hitting my head while walking on a field in the countryside. It was brief and painful, but the movie was in “a foreign land.” The film told me “not to be afraid.”
I had sensed something like this in Turning Gate. The movie pushed me into a real shock, and literally and physically shook me. It was like getting stuck and being shaken in a “revolving door,” which is a scary experience to us as well.
Violence depicted in HONG Sangsoo’s films is visible and straightforward. Violence in his films weren’t packaged to be pretty, nor was it packaged to be seductive or decorative. Some films use violence as a pretty package. Violence in his films holds the same status with other elements such as humor and shadow of light. Everything is contained in one shot. Nothing is given a higher priority in his films. Everything is handled equally and with the same method. I think this is how HONG Sangsoo creates violence on the screen.
Everything in HONG’s film is visible and spoken out. In other words, HONG Sangsoo never forgets anything. Since everything is presented, everything needs to be perceived at once. Otherwise, you have to see the movie again. However, I don’t think HONG’s film is too delicate. If you do, you’ll easily think that his films are too difficult to understand. Of course, HONG Sangsoo’s films aren’t revealing nor sympathetic.
What I see in his films is “confinement.” I’d like to call his words confined movies. There is a frame in his films and characters are confined in that space. Woman Is the Future of Man contains a shot that gave me great inspiration. Mun-ho takes Seon-wha to his apartment. The camera moves in panorama from apartment buildings to the two of them walking down the hallway. A panorama to display the place on HONG Sangsoo’s film is not a big deal. But I couldn’t forget the panoramic shot. Such a shot may be trying to say out loud that it isn’t trying to show anything that important. HONG Sangsoo is revealing the place like sort of prison. The city is a place where characters are imprisoned. Inside a taxi, a café with a window, a restaurant, a hotel room or a train don’t provide places for escape. These structures can be their imprisonment of life. All of these elements, prison, humor, sex and ethics, are all stripped off and gathered to make HONG’s films interesting and special. HONG reveals many things about us in his films. In this sense, film is very seductive, more so by the fact that his films are not exotic. HONG never takes advantage of his status as an Asian film director. He firmly pushes it away as if it is an artificial title.
HONG’s films seem like a student who wants to remain behind and not to enter the grown-up world of morality. At the same time, his films show a very mature view on human fate. In this aspect, HONG Sangsoo’s films are like a two-beat film, or at times a three-beat waltz.
HONG’s films sometimes need two men for the film. There is a “memory that evokes repulsion” in Turning Gate. One man needs another character who can take his pressure off and this second character possesses nothing and is insulted. This character compromises in order to obtain a greater comfort but ends up losing everything because his acts of subversion results in a woman being taken away from him.
Turning Gate starts off with two men and one woman. Three characters are needed, but the protagonist suddenly leaves. Then a second woman enters. This second woman leaves the protagonist in the end, in a very funny way. The entrance of a fortune teller is very comic. All of HONG’s films have a slip-up of some kind. The second woman reminds him of the first woman. The first woman is dumped by the protagonist, who even throws away her photo.
The scene in which Myeong-sook dances in front of the two men was a shock to me. The scene almost made me feel as though I was in misery. For this reason, one needs to work up courage to watch his films. I wasn’t identifying myself with Myeong-sook. I identify with all the characters appearing on the scene, especially with the situation. Most of all, I identify with the person revealing oneself in such a way.
This was beyond my imagination. This scene is very beautiful and very brave. The director films this scene in a weird point of view, almost like in a theatrical way. The young woman shows her back to the audience and the two are seated facing her. The two men look directly at her face, but we, the audience, are part of her. It shows that the scene is with her. That’s what makes this scene so special. If this scene is with her in any little way, it means that the male protagonist knows this fact. But he doesn’t want to get involved with her to that level at this moment. He just wants to flirt meaninglessly during his chaotic period. His career was hurt because of the situation he was in and he doesn’t want to get involved. He looks like he wants to take revenge on somebody. He was insulted by somebody and wants to insult someone else. He wants to do this because it will make him feel alive.
Women in HONG’s films play different roles. At first, they seem like victims. But women are the axis of time in the film. Women have their own time span. This is also true in Woman Is the Future of Man. A woman is betrayed and eventually she is forgotten because of another woman or replaced by a more attractive one. But as a result, however, the woman creates unity in time. It is as though these women are timing the film like a metronome.
HONG Sangsoo talks about the basis of his films to his students or his audience. I listen carefully to his theory of his spoken fragments. And I understand what he says. There is a foundation and fragments of time attached to it. That time is for a woman protagonist. It is the time to create unity in the film. If I understand correctly, the way of composing his film is combining those pieces. This is a collection and different from an addition or an accumulation. If I understand it correctly, HONG Sangsoo writes out a scene. He works in search of something, and his writing is in the planning stages for a new movie that hasn’t been decided. HONG collects fragments. These fragments could be from his memories, something he may have seen in his everyday life or from his imagination. HONG realizes his collections have some sense of order and meaning and without realizing it, those fragments mean a film.
Recently, there has been some sort of censorship even in American films. That is, a woman can release herself only when she is drunk. Otherwise she never lets herself slip. I am disgusted by this. This is how they protect a woman’s virtue. It’s a horrible way to protect morality. Therefore, only when a human is drunk is that person allowed to show borderline animal instinct
But HONG Sangsoo’s film shows the exact opposite. Alcohol in his film never camouflages human weakness, nor is it used as a tool to shake one’s abstinence. That is, it is not a tool to hide a weakness when one desires someone. In HONG Sangsoo’s film, everything is decided before drinking begins. Drinking is reaching an agreement after clearly thinking out the decision. Alcohol is used to allow the characters to clearly think through the decisions they have made. When they drink, they are saying to each other, “let’s not disguise ourselves.” What we want is not necessarily a “romance,” but just to enjoy sex. So it’s exactly the opposite of American films. Alcohol depicted in most of the films are used to make characters pretend self-blame, covering their faces with hands and lamenting, “Dear God, what have I done in this room!” HONG’s films are the opposite of this and I find this to be surprising about his film.
In Woman Is the Future of Man, one of the two key characters, Mun-ho, plays a truth or dare game with his students at a shabby tavern. The audience can’t yet tell whether this is part of the male protagonist’s dream while wearing the red scarf. Everything that occurs in this scene is directed at one young woman. The purpose is to seduce this young woman. One young man joins the game. The plot is set to be frank, but the male protagonist and this young man aren’t telling anything truthful. These men get into an argument like they are in a tug-of-war.
The end of the film is very complicated. The movie is carefully plotted and pieced together in orderly fashion. HONG Sangsoo also starts with a planned sequence. But it is risky because a shot lasts long in planned sequences. Many incidents can happen. But this tangible time provides actors with a sense of reality. A planned sequence is like swinging from a trapeze without a safety net. Of course, a lot of preparation is needed for the sequence shot.
Woman Is the Future of Man leaves so many things behind. In the last scene a silhouette of a big man is left alone on the street, leaving a strong impression. The young woman suddenly grabs a taxi and leaves and the man is left behind like an idiot. A net showcased on this film has no ruptures. Heated feelings portrayed in this film lingers on. It is so tightly wrapped, there is no room for decoration or space to hang in the air. Fights and confrontations in this film are between two men, or within one man. The first part in Turning Gate doesn’t end as a mere first act in the film. The first part becomes something that is inserted into the second part. The chunk of time in the first part is used to add dramatic element to the second part.
One woman and two men are presented in Woman Is the Future of Man. Each man hides something from one another. Only the woman knows everything. We, the audience, want these two men to tell us what they know, but only the woman can tell us everything. There is a very interesting scene in Woman Is the Future of Man. In this scene, I see some empty space. Two men wait for the woman near her home. She is still working at the hotel bar. Finally she gets off from a grey Benz. Then we see the pub where the two men are waiting. Two of them talk about the chicken they ate with her. The woman doesn’t appear immediately. Later she appears breathless.
I saw this scene several times, but was always left curious. Her clothes don’t change when she gets off the Benz and arrives at the pub. However, it feels as though she may have done something to hide something that we don’t know during that time. Of course, this is something that she may want to hide from the two men. This film has many odd aspects. This film makes us an accomplice of what is directed. We are given some information. We are like children watching a puppet show, who know something the patrol couldn’t. HONG Sangsoo is a great director. HONG is in an intense and deep relationship with the characters in the film and the film itself.
Women in HONG’s films are either physically butchered like in the first film, or deserted from a loving relationship. However they are the owners of their time. They are not floating bodies. I have an image about HONG Sangsoo’s films. There are stations in space, and women are inside them. Men are astronauts traveling in space with an oxygen tank. They have to knock on the door to enter the station. Having such imagination in mind, one cannot say that HONG Sangsoo’s films are misogynistic. The term misogynistic implies a view which treats women like idiots. In HONG’s films, he just can’t provide women with an image of a peaceful and childlike world.
In some respects, watching HONG’s film is self-destructive to me. Of course, his films make me rich and abundant. To love so much about something so masculine, one has to be a masochist. His films are very masculine. I don’t know if my films are feminine. I thought there were only movies that were either well made or a failure. But HONG’s film makes one question oneself. Can a film be masculine or feminine?
Do his films make me feel so rich and abundant? I don’t know. I think HONG Sangsoo’s films make us at least less stupid. His films endow narrative with complexity which has been gradually disappearing in recent cinema. Films are turning into a romance novel to lure more audiences. It has a beginning, development and conclusion, following the law of a drama. Everything has to be served like dishes in a course menu starting from an appetizer to the main course and finally a dessert. This is a serious problem. Films were never trapped in such a coercive set of rules. But now it is imprisoned in this blueprint. Then Woman Is the Future of Man surfaced. This is a vacuum in space.
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