THE DAY A PIG FELL INTO THE WELL (65) (72 - second viewing)

Directed by: Hong Sang-Soo

Starring: Kim Eui-Sung, Park Jin-Sung, Jo Eun-Sook

The Pitch: The lives of four unhappy young Koreans intersect in poignant ways.

[NB. Seen with French subtitles, so I've probably missed some of the nuances. Review subject to change when (and if) I ever see it again.]

Theo Sez: The title (never explained) may be a reference to the vanished customs and sayings of village / rural life, which would certainly fit this tale of urban alienation - especially since there's also a line about people today living far from Nature, and the opening shot is of stunted tangerines growing in the folds of an apartment block. Its characters - young professionals, unencumbered by kids, parents or any particular beliefs - hang around in bars and fast-food joints, watch "The Simpsons" dubbed into Korean, try to keep relationships going, fight doomed, meaningless battles against dirt and impurity ; there's something terribly easy, cinematically speaking, about this kind of shapeless anomie, barely distinguishable from the empty lives in other pictures of the new, post-economic-miracle Asia like VIVE L'AMOUR or Edward Yang's THE TERRORISER (to name only two that I've seen), yet Hong's careful style turns out to be rather haunting - gradually interweaving his characters' lives, using close-ups only very sparingly, building implacably through very quotidian detail to a mood of profound despair. He is indeed, to quote "Cahiers", an "entomologist" of a film-maker ; and, if his insects don't do anything particularly surprising, that may well be part of the fascination in observing them.

[Second viewing, with English subtitles, reveals a much richer film : for one thing, the "anomie" is far from "shapeless". Trust between people is a recurring theme (notably in the references to money being lent and returned), posited as a constant safeguard - maybe the only safeguard - against obsessive fear of Life (the husband's constant fear of germs, the wife walking carefully on newspapers in the final shot) ; the casual remark that "ideologies are broken" in today's Korea also relevant, making the world seem ever more arbitrary and frightening. Visually beautiful, in Hong's trademark style of rich colours offset by just-so compositions (and vice versa), and compellingly mysterious, as if haunted by a constant offscreen presence ; it's a near-great film, obviously and elaborately structured yet open both in meaning and sensibility. Bonus points for superbly-controlled restaurant brawl set-piece and wryly literal depiction of faceless sex.]