Stay Puft
10-20-2008, 10:09 PM
Oh! Soo-jung (2000, dir. Sang-soo Hong)
rec. dreamdead
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6907/photo29388sg.jpg
Sang-soo Hong's Oh! Soo-jung, known in these parts as Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, is about a man and a woman who become romantically engaged. Or is it about the relationship between this man and woman, that is to say the mechanisms of romantic relationships and the plurality of possibilities that always exist, never realized? Or is it about a movie about all of these things?
Sang-soo Hong structures his movie in such a way that might invite interpretations about memory and perception (head on over to imdb.com for such reviews), but that does not satisfactorily account for the mundane and mechanical precision with which he deploys narrative details, or the meta-language in which he chooses to speak this narrative. Yes, there is a man waiting in a hotel, and then a narrative unfolds, and then there is a woman waiting in a gondola, and then that narrative unfolds again. But what is really happening here?
http://i38.tinypic.com/2rr40ms.png
http://i36.tinypic.com/15zmgc7.png
A group of onlookers stare off screen, and suddenly a voice tells them to disperse, as they (the film crew) are shooting a film. Jae-hoon and other characters watch a movie as it is being filmed, as they are being filmed in a movie, by a crew off screen (distinctions collapse with such language). Hence, we watch a movie as Jae-hoon walks away and bumps into Soo-jung, the beginning of their first romantic episode, filmed on location. And why do they know each other? Because they’re making a movie together, as we had just seen (and as we continue to see, because this is a movie). You see how comfortably lost we are now. But perhaps we should start even sooner.
A man arrives at a hotel. He waits outside his room. He takes off his shoes and jumps on the bed. He searches the room. Why? He rests. What is he doing? He answers a phone call and talks to a woman. She just woke up, feels sick. Will she be coming? He'll be waiting. (For what?) Details slowly add up, but where are they going? In medias res. In these moments, the film is limitless. Every direction is open to it. This is the excitement of cinema as the light begins to flicker on the screen, the promise and seduction. What is the context? How will events play out? How will these opening moments resonate?
The movie unfolds in seven numbered sequences, each detailing an episode or event in the lives of Soo-jung, Jae-hoon, Young-soo and his film crew (each being a scene in a movie - a day of the week? - representing a possible series of events leading to the encounter in the hotel room and the loss of Soo-jung's virginity, depending on which narrative we're following). Half way through the film, the events play out again. Seven numbered sequences, each detailing an episode or event in the lives of Soo-jung, Jae-hoon, Young-soo and his film crew (each being a scene in a movie - a day of the week? - representing a possible series of events leading to the encounter in the hotel room and the apparent loss of Soo-jung's virginity, depending on which narrative or which particular details you care to mix and match).
This is a movie. It could have been a different movie. It could have changed all the details around again for a third set of seven numbered sequences (a fork, a spoon… a knife?). What would that achieve? Oh, but Young-soo isn't in the hotel room, so that wouldn't make logical sense, you might object. But isn't he? Who the hell is shooting this film, anyways? And does it matter? It could have been mundane this way, it could have been mundane that way, it could have been mundane an infinite number of ways. When Soo-jung and Jae-hoon have sex at the end, the scene resonates with a myriad of possibilities, as narrative details shift around and bounce as opposed to building coherently into a resolute conclusion. But it's still limited. I can't help but feel that all Sang-soo Hong has accomplished is a doubling of details, an accomplishment that means nothing beyond its own mechanical fetishism.
rec. dreamdead
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6907/photo29388sg.jpg
Sang-soo Hong's Oh! Soo-jung, known in these parts as Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, is about a man and a woman who become romantically engaged. Or is it about the relationship between this man and woman, that is to say the mechanisms of romantic relationships and the plurality of possibilities that always exist, never realized? Or is it about a movie about all of these things?
Sang-soo Hong structures his movie in such a way that might invite interpretations about memory and perception (head on over to imdb.com for such reviews), but that does not satisfactorily account for the mundane and mechanical precision with which he deploys narrative details, or the meta-language in which he chooses to speak this narrative. Yes, there is a man waiting in a hotel, and then a narrative unfolds, and then there is a woman waiting in a gondola, and then that narrative unfolds again. But what is really happening here?
http://i38.tinypic.com/2rr40ms.png
http://i36.tinypic.com/15zmgc7.png
A group of onlookers stare off screen, and suddenly a voice tells them to disperse, as they (the film crew) are shooting a film. Jae-hoon and other characters watch a movie as it is being filmed, as they are being filmed in a movie, by a crew off screen (distinctions collapse with such language). Hence, we watch a movie as Jae-hoon walks away and bumps into Soo-jung, the beginning of their first romantic episode, filmed on location. And why do they know each other? Because they’re making a movie together, as we had just seen (and as we continue to see, because this is a movie). You see how comfortably lost we are now. But perhaps we should start even sooner.
A man arrives at a hotel. He waits outside his room. He takes off his shoes and jumps on the bed. He searches the room. Why? He rests. What is he doing? He answers a phone call and talks to a woman. She just woke up, feels sick. Will she be coming? He'll be waiting. (For what?) Details slowly add up, but where are they going? In medias res. In these moments, the film is limitless. Every direction is open to it. This is the excitement of cinema as the light begins to flicker on the screen, the promise and seduction. What is the context? How will events play out? How will these opening moments resonate?
The movie unfolds in seven numbered sequences, each detailing an episode or event in the lives of Soo-jung, Jae-hoon, Young-soo and his film crew (each being a scene in a movie - a day of the week? - representing a possible series of events leading to the encounter in the hotel room and the loss of Soo-jung's virginity, depending on which narrative we're following). Half way through the film, the events play out again. Seven numbered sequences, each detailing an episode or event in the lives of Soo-jung, Jae-hoon, Young-soo and his film crew (each being a scene in a movie - a day of the week? - representing a possible series of events leading to the encounter in the hotel room and the apparent loss of Soo-jung's virginity, depending on which narrative or which particular details you care to mix and match).
This is a movie. It could have been a different movie. It could have changed all the details around again for a third set of seven numbered sequences (a fork, a spoon… a knife?). What would that achieve? Oh, but Young-soo isn't in the hotel room, so that wouldn't make logical sense, you might object. But isn't he? Who the hell is shooting this film, anyways? And does it matter? It could have been mundane this way, it could have been mundane that way, it could have been mundane an infinite number of ways. When Soo-jung and Jae-hoon have sex at the end, the scene resonates with a myriad of possibilities, as narrative details shift around and bounce as opposed to building coherently into a resolute conclusion. But it's still limited. I can't help but feel that all Sang-soo Hong has accomplished is a doubling of details, an accomplishment that means nothing beyond its own mechanical fetishism.