The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-Soo)

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Shit, screwed up and totally forgot to add the poll. Raiders, help!

At least my rating looks nice though!

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And on an unrelated matter, why can't we add a poll on an edit if we are too stupid to remember in the first place?

Edit: Gracias

[EyesWideOpen]

Just a heads up your image is broken.

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Just a heads up your image is broken.

Cheers. It was there but kept disappearing. Put in a new one in. We'll see if that holds.

[dreamdead]

Because the trailer needs to be remembered for its singular awesomeness...

[youtube]NsIZbNhe8bM&feature=related[/youtube]

Someone's uploaded the entire film to youtube, but without any English subs. :|

[dreamdead]

I am admittedly a Hong fanboy, but I enjoyed this one a lot. I thought the Groundhog Day-like repetitions with Sang-Joon were an interesting new development with Hong's exploration of narrative. Far more intriguing to see him play with time and character every fifteen minutes than wait for the typical bifurcation at the halfway mark.

It's a little depressing that Hong doesn't engage sexuality as openly as he did earlier in his career, and I'm not quite positive if this rivals last year's Hahaha, but it's a quality study of masculinity. I think it's two biggest flaws are that the camera zooms felt less logical this time and that the women aren't quite as developed. The women in Woman on the Beach still might be the best at seeing through the b.s. channeled by the men.

I'm looking forward to this year's inevitable Cannes release for Hong. Supposedly he's already wrapped the next film, as well as another short.

[Peng]

Repetition, coincidence, or fate? This film is right in what I often think as transitional years for Hong, and I think I might like it better if this has been made earlier when he would have more fully scripted these encounters, and also probably like it less if it come during this later, very improvisational time. I doubt though that either period would have produced something that feels this mysterious and elusive, each 'day' filled with halting, frustrated, tantalizing variations of the day before, making you wonder if it's the lead's Groundhog Day loop he needs to break out from, or if it's his progressions throughout similar situations (whether those progressions are for better or worse).

And it's bookended by his two encounters with two characters played by the same actress, in which the outcomes based purely on plot description are equally callous on his part, but in which the tones and his behaviors diverge -- the former harsh, the latter tender -- that make the bookends so productively, emotionally ambiguous as to how these 'days' he progressed through may have resulted in this difference. Even more so than usual for Hong, one to rewatch and potentially reassess. 7/10