Speak of Korean cinema outside art-house circles, and the conversation will inevitably revolve around the kooky, provocatively intelligent genre-benders from the likes of Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. The more humble and unsuspecting cinema of Hong Sang-soo is an entirely different experience, and throughout his prolific career, featuring 20+ years of directing, he has amassed a collective of ardent art film fans. Through methodical pace and rhythm, quotidian storylines entrenched in Korean traditions, and translucent warmth for his characters, Hong has developed his own brand of sensitive and thoughtful cinema and, in his own right, added a unique voice to contemporary Korean film. In this regard, “The Day After” is a classically Hong-ian movie, which is the biggest compliment it can get.
The tone of wistfulness is especially palpable in the story of Kim Bong-wan (Kwon Haeh-yo), an owner of a tiny publishing company, and the particularly long day he’s having. Shot in old-fashioned black and white by Kim Hyung-koo (who also shot Hong’s “On the Beach at Night Alone”), practically every frame is like an old family photograph. This tone of nostalgia is made thicker by the single piece of music in the film – a heart-rending, poignant melody that sounds like it’s being played through a 1930s gramophone – which slips in and out of the picture like an unsuspecting passerby.
With these refined flourishes, the film depicts Bong-wan’s predicament; his wife Song Haejoo (Cho Yun-hee) notices that something about him has changed and, as the film opens, asks him directly if he’s seeing someone else. The question, which Song asks, again and again, lingers in the air, unanswered. The truth is Bong-wan was seeing someone, his ex-assistant Lee Chang-sook (Kim Saeb-yuk) who left two months previously and moved to the U.K.. Memories of Chang-sook, and the time they’ve spent together, haunt Bong-wan as he goes to work in the morning to meet his new assistant, Song Areum (Kim Min-hee, who won the Best Actress in Berlin for ‘On the Beach’). It’s her first day, and the two spend it together in deeply personal and philosophical discussions about Bong-wan’s working process, the nature of reality, Areum’s unconventional name, and other matters. As always with a good Sang-soo film, these conversations are effortlessly engaging and seamlessly draw you in.
Drama unfolds when Bong-wan’s wife finds a letter that he wrote a long time ago to Chang-sook, and, going to his office to confront him, finds Areum. Mistaking the new assistant as her husband’s mistress, a distinctly uncomfortable situation develops which Bong-wan, in his clumsy and cowardly way, does his best to contain. Things get even stickier when Chang-sook returns to Korea and comes running back to Bong-wan’s arms to be with him and work for him again. Infidelity has long been one of Hong’s central subjects, but “The Day After” might just be his greatest film about the ails of mixing business with pleasure.
Hong’s signature is so ink-deep at this point in his career that watching his films feels like visiting an old friend. The careful camera that glides along with the characters, as they shift in homes, offices, and streets – sketching out the space and mise-en-scene like orchestral instruments that add layers to a symphony – stays remarkably still for minutes on end during conversations. Observant zooms break the horizontal flow once in a while to beckon us closer, and masterful framing gives visual commentary to characters’ interior turmoils. One particular shot of Bong-woon sitting on his desk between stacks of books comes to mind as a quintessential example; trapped by his own self-created demons, the man tries to bury himself in his work.
The play with time and memory, as Bong-woon reflects over Chang-sook when coming across places they’ve spent time together in, is another fascinating aspect of the film. The elliptical nature of the structure, as past present and future fold into each other throughout the film, gives “The Day After” a lilting rhythm that is positively infectious. Harmoniously, the actors play their essential part in making the piece tick and tock with a full range of emotions as jealousy, admiration, anger, love, disbelief, guilt, regret, and acceptance get tangled in Hong’s controlled web. Kim Min-hee, is brilliant as Areum, the film’s anchor and most conscious character. Similarly, veteran actor Kwon Haeh-yo adds a tremendous amount of layers to Bong-woon that craft a completely believable three-dimensional human being, full of weakness. A key conversation between Bong-woon, his wife, and Aruem ends in his tears as that gorgeous melody slips through the speakers. The humanity on display transcends the screen.
The final moments of the film, thanks to a memory lapse that’s difficult to believe, derails a great film from having an appropriately satisfying conclusion. But that’s as far as nitpicking for flaws goes with “The Day After.” Having “Right Now, Wrong Then” and ‘On the Beach’ coming just before this beautiful picture, Hong Sang-soo is doing some of the best work of his illustrious career. This quiet tale depicts a brief moment in time but speaks volumes about the human condition, when desires and anxieties get in the way of our relationships with our loved ones and ourselves as regrets of things said and left unsaid weigh down on us like a megaton of unlit dynamite. “The Day After” is all of these things and more, a soulful and profound story told in a distinct cinematic language that’s worthy of its own film academy. [A-]
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