2016 Top Ten List #8 Right Now, Wrong Then (Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da)

RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN (Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da)   A-           
South Korea  (121 mi)  2015 ‘Scope  d:  Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-soo was born in Korea but got a bachelor’s degree at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and his masters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Making films since 1996, Hong is known for complicated narratives, sometimes showing the same events twice, each time through a different character's eyes, but also for the most obnoxious male characters on the planet, usually grotesquely overbearing, with bad manners and a tendency to get drunk and hop into bed with younger girls, usually they are artists like film directors or professors sleeping with younger students, where they perform miserably if at all.  Impotency is a key ingredient, even if only psychological, as his characters mostly remain in a state of emotionally repressed inertia.  He's certainly a minimalist, writes his own films, and remains perhaps the last of the independent film movement left in South Korea.  He's left alone to make art films that exist in his own universe, though NIGHT AND DAY (2008) was partially financed by France and was filmed in Paris.  Critics love to call him the Eric Rohmer of the East, as his films are nearly all dialogue, examining relationships in much the same way, but this is misleading, as Hong is far more confrontational in his use of deluded and misbehaving men, using complex narrative schemes that result in a more experimental style all his own, as his films are a devastating critique of befuddled male abhorrence, where it’s fair to say the abominable behavior on display is universal, the ultimate power play option where men are constantly trying to get the upper hand even while they’re flailing away in utter futility.  They simply refuse to admit their weaknesses, even when they’re caught in the act.  None of his films register as a Wow factor, instead they are all low key, intimate, and conversational.  He has an extremely naturalistic style of storytelling, creating a compelling atmosphere, especially a complete lack of artifice, which he uses to shoot among the best sex sequences in the modern era, as there are simply no inhibitions.  But men are boorish and women are mysteriously attracted to their authority.  The director’s first 8 films were all shown in Chicago, either at Facets or the Film Festival until 2008, bursting onto the scene with distinguished flair and imagination, but then haven’t been seen since though he’s continued to make one film a year.  Now releasing his 17th feature film, the last 8 have all been shown at the New York Film Festival, while none have screened in Chicago.  In June at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York even screened a retrospective of his entire feature-length output (The Hong Sang-soo Retrospective Is a Must-See - The New Yorker).

Hong has always had a fascination with mirror images, treading the same ground twice, allowing characters to see themselves differently, where this slight variation on a theme often leads to startling results, where he finds moments of gripping honesty that come out of nowhere, like a shock to the system.  Shooting in a tableaux style, the camera remains affixed, usually to a tiny, enclosed space, often holding for extended sequences, allowing the scenes to develop, and perhaps at the last moment the camera will veer up into the trees or sky or distant landscape, once again holding the shot, or zoom onto a specific object of focus, such as a face, allowing the emotional state of mind to register.  In this way, the director decides what the audience sees and notices, carefully making subtle changes at appropriate moments, inevitably changing the outcome significantly with almost surgical precision.  Many claim Woody Allen has been making the same film for successive decades, with only slight variations.  The same can be said for Hong, though far fewer people see his films, which have just about become an endangered species, as his top-grossing film until now has been IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (2012), featuring international star extraordinaire Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, raking in a grand total of $25,000.  So this guy operates on a completely different wavelength than what we’re used to, often dealing with modern routine and repetition, yet showing a surprising amount of originality.  Like a puzzle piece that all fits together in the grand scheme of things, he operates with almost mathematical certainty, continually changing the players, shifting their focus of attention, yet the prevailing themes are immediately recognizable, an adherence to social customs, male power and vanity on display, the elusiveness of love, the difficulty of sustaining relationships, violating moral boundaries, a refusal to learn from past mistakes, leading to regrets, apologies, moments of tenderness, and personal torment, as he’s an extraordinary playwright who continues to explore the human condition by finding a seemingly unlimited variation of new possibilities.  While one might think being away from his films for nearly a decade it would be easy to fall out of the rhythm and visual language of his cinematic style, where memory plays so heavily in the slight shifts and variations from film to film, instead it felt like “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” as there was a renewed appreciation for what we’ve been missing all along, which is a director that shuns pretense and commercialism, but instead insists upon exploring how people operate within themselves, using a Jacques Demy choreography of missed opportunities, showing how easily the choices we make might lead to another direction, where he loves to compare parallel storylines, each one a distinct possibility, where there’s no one single existing reality, but a merging of what takes place only in the imagination and what actually happens, where it’s up to each individual viewer to distinguish the difference. 

What’s amusing, yet tragically profound, is how this film reveals Hong’s autobiographical arc, as he has in real life finally become a character from one of his own films, breaking from the years of routine and repetition, in this case 30 years of marriage, to run off with the female star of one of his films, Kim Min-hee, who is twenty years younger, declaring his love for her and his intent to start a new life.  This has caused such a major scandal in Korea that it has become tabloid fodder, with both at the center of attention in what can only be described as a moral dilemma.  Besides being an actress, Kim was a spokesperson for a line of cosmetics, but after public adultery was exposed, she was immediately dropped with the company demanding compensation for back pay.  Meanwhile Hong’s longtime wife is outraged, claiming her husband is failing to support their own daughter, claiming he is no longer paying for her education abroad as he needs to support his new girlfriend, covering for her unexpected financial loss.  Back and forth texts between Hong’s wife and Kim’s mother have been made public, with one claiming the other should have been a better parent, while the other reminded the irate wife that she is having difficulty raising her own daughter.  Like Woody Allen and his 1992 breakup fiasco with Mia Farrow, running away with one of her own adopted daughters, declaring his undying love, while at the same time fending off charges of child molestation that have stuck with him throughout his lifetime, let’s just agree that this is another huge mess, though Hong’s wife indicated she had some inkling something was up after watching this film, with its own stark revelations, where truth and fiction intersect.  It is perhaps no coincidence that the lead male role is an art film director, Ham Chun-su (Jung Je-young), visiting the city of Suwon for a screening of his most recent film, where he is invited to participate in a Q & A discussion.  The title card interestingly reads, “Right Then, Wrong Now,” a distinct play on words suggesting something is out of place.  Arriving a day early, as the event was pushed back a day, he mulls around town visiting historic sites, including an ancient palace, carrying hot coffee in a cup to warm him from the winter chill in the air, where he soon notices an attractive girl, Yoon Hee-jung (Kim Min-hee), introducing himself, where he’s surprised to discover she recognizes his name as a noted director, inviting her for coffee, learning she is a former model that decided she was much happier instead spending her days painting, though it leaves her alone and isolated for much of the time.  Pressing to see her work, they retreat to her art studio, which happens to be nearby, describing her paintings as loosely going with the flow without an inherent plan, which is also how he describes his movies, believing they have something in common.  While obviously attracted to her, making that plain for her to see, he seems more interested in drawing her out of her shell, yet hides his real intentions behind pleasantries and flattering politeness, while she remains shy, quietly hidden behind a customary wall of reserve.  Working up an appetite, they go out for sushi, which includes a heavy dose of soju (rice alcohol), making toasts to one another, before heading off to a café where a friend is having a party.  Imbibing in still more alcohol, he inadvertently blurts out more than is discreet, causing Hee-jung to excuse herself, as his constant attention is making her uncomfortable.  Both having drunk too much, they depart on separate paths. 

The next day at the screening shows amusing aftereffects, as in front of a scant few, Chun-su suffers an emotional meltdown, still hung-over from the previous night’s drinking binge, erupting in anger at having to describe in one sentence what his films are attempting to convey, floundering for a while before gaining momentum, where his words only grow more aggressive and inflammatory, as if it’s ludicrous to even attempt such a thing, claiming his films have always fought “against” words, eventually walking out of his own film discussion, having reached a breaking point.  Once outside, having a smoke, he rails against the insipid shallowness of the film critic on the podium, describing him as “ignorant,” absolving himself of any responsibility for the incident before returning back to Seoul.  Retracing its steps, the film begins again with a different title card reading “Right Now, Wrong Then,” as the two meet in front of the palace, head off for coffee and tea before visiting her art studio.  This time Chun-su is more demonstrative, calling her work utterly conventional, as she refuses to challenge herself, suggesting she may need to reevaluate her artistic motives.  She is floored and dumbstruck by these remarks, which he quickly apologizes for afterwards, suggesting he needs some air to smoke.  As he steps out the door, she asks if all directors are like that.  Grinning sheepishly to himself, he responds, “Yes, we are.”  Surprisingly, she takes more interest in him when he’s inconsiderate and wrenchingly honest, even to the point of being brutally cruel.  This time, in the drunken conversation over sushi and soju, Chun-su passionately declares his love for her, like uttering a personal proclamation, but then collapses into a heap of embarrassment and personal torment by revealing he’s married and has kids (a pertinent piece of information that was not revealed the first time around), which seems to have a crushing effect upon him.  Although consumed by tears, he once again declares his love, making sure there is no misunderstanding.  Overheated by all the drama, he needs to step outside to clear his head, welcoming the blustery winter cold.  At the party, Hee-jung quickly excuses herself, claiming she’s drunk too much, leaving Chun-su to make a spectacle of himself, as he hilariously removes every stitch of clothing to several terrified women who react in horror, utterly petrified by what they see.  This panicked confusion is followed by Chun-su and Hee-jung leaving together, where they wonder if they need to invent a lie or create an acceptable explanation to avoid moral suspicion, which is equally amusing, considering what just happened.  Once outside, Chun-su suggests they take a taxi to Kangwon Province (a reference to his second film), which she readily agrees to, but then both lose their courage when a taxi arrives but is pointed in the wrong direction.  Several more taxis go by just crossing the street, so they end up walking instead down dimly lit, narrow streets that are completely empty in the late hours as they approach her house when Hee-jung receives an anxious call on her cellphone from her mother, wondering if she was with that “madman” from the party earlier, as one of the girls obviously described him as a lunatic that took all his clothes off in front of them.  Scrutinizing him afterwards, she curiously asks what got into him, but they’re both still too inebriated to make a fuss.  Not yet ready to say goodbye, still flush with the adrenaline of possibilities, Chun-su urges her to go in, but come back outside, suggesting he’ll wait in the bitter cold.  Promising to do exactly that, she goes inside, with her mother greeting her at the door, while Chun-su has a smoke in the bitter cold, still standing in a nearby alley, which also references his fourth film TURNING GATE (2002), where a gentleman suitor waits hopefully in an alley waiting for a girl to step outside her family home.  In each case, they wait in vain, as Chun-su, showing no patience, quickly exits.  The next day there is no meltdown at his screening, no verbal jousting, instead he stands around outside the building smoking with friends, accepting all flattery that is directed his way, which includes greeting Hee-jung’s arrival, as she eagerly anticipates viewing his first film, vowing to watch his others as well, again, both going their separate ways.        

The Strange Little Cat (Das merkwürdige Kätzchen)

THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT (Das merkwürdige Kätzchen)       B      

Germany  (72 mi)  2014  d:  Ramon Zürcher       The Strange Little Cat - KimStim

The film is little more than a day in the life of a Berlin family, meticulously observed with pinpoint accuracy, but what first-time director Ramon Zürcher offers is a radical perspective on ordinary events, where the film is peppered with oddly juxtaposed connections, where even the most banal events are continually seen as slightly askew, where instead of a harmony so perfectly expressed in the brilliant opening shot of Béla Tarr’s WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000), Werckmeister Harmonies - YouTube (10:56), where drunken bar patrons become moons and spinning planets revolving around the sun, Zürcher’s universe is continually seen spinning out of balance with a rhythm of disorder, becoming an absurd comedy of errors.  Supposedly conceived at a seminar conducted by retired Hungarian director Béla Tarr, the idea draws upon Kafka’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis, where a common, ordinary experience turns into an out of whack, surreal fantasy, where realistic events are given an often dream-like quality, but no explanation is ever offered for this most peculiar take on what is otherwise perceived as the mundane and the routine.  A minimalist economy of means at only seventy-two minutes, written, directed, edited, and produced by Zürcher, while also providing the sound editing and digital effects himself, the director brings a formal precision to confined space, as the claustrophobic camera offers a fixed position inside a cramped family apartment, placing the viewer in the center of the action as people slide around each other as they move throughout the kitchen in a flurry of activity while fixing themselves something to eat.  While the stoic mother (Jenny Schily) continually reminds her precocious daughter Clara (Mia Kasalo) to keep quiet as grandmother is still asleep, since Clara has a habit of screaming at the top of her lungs when the garbage disposal is running, it is nonetheless the mother that turns on every conceivable modern electrical appliance in the kitchen while grinding and roasting individual cups of coffee, squeezing fresh juice out of oranges, disposing of the garbage and preparing food, each one drowning out the conversation with the most disruptive and annoying noise that seems to come in the most inconceivable moments.  Equally strange is an early morning visit to fix a washing machine, where a dizzying routine of constant movement is established with people entering and exiting the frame, all jostling for position, with the camera centered upon their waists, often cutting off their heads, becoming a choreography of moving bodies not only coming in and out of the room, but in and out of the front door of the apartment. 

Initially the flurry of activity, including a mischievous cat being chased by a much bigger dog, is amusingly off-kilter, where there’s seemingly no rhyme or reason for what’s happening, becoming a strange jumble of chaos that accentuates sight gags and physical comedy, where the film is largely a collection of small moments that grow more absurd with often incomprehensible mutterings from each of the characters, establishing weird personalities, where by the end, human activity is seen as a fishbowl style madhouse where only the cat, with an air of indifference and lack of concern seems the most sane creature in the household.   The non-narrative, unpredictability factor gives this the rigorous form and outlandish style of an experimental film in keeping with the director’s Berlin School (films) mentors at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin), where Zürcher, born in Switzerland, has been a student since 2006.  Led by directors including Christian Petzold’s Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), Barbara (2012) and Beats Being Dead (Dreileben 1 - Etwas Besseres als den Tod) (2012), Thomas Arslan, Angela Schanelec, Christoph Hochhäusler’s One Minute of Darkness (Dreileben 3 – Eine Minute Dunkel) (2012), Ulrich Köhler, Benjamin Heisenberg’s THE ROBBER (2010), Valeska Grisebach’s BE MY STAR (2001) and LONGING (2006), and Maren Ade’s THE FOREST FOR THE TREES (2003) and 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #9 Everyone Else (Alle Anderen) (2009), their films tend to lack mainstream accessibility, where according to German director Oskar Roehler, “They are always slow, always depressing, nothing is ever really said in them (though) they are always well thought of.”  The fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 triggered a collapse not only of political institutions, but many elements of cultural identity, particularly in the former East Germany which simply disappeared overnight, where Berlin became the cultural epicenter of new progressive measures, where in the mid 1990’s, graduates of the German Film and Television Academy emerged with a new aesthetically-driven form of cinema.  Abandoning the historical context embraced by most commercially popular German films at the time, films of the Berlin School tend to deal with life in the here and now, refraining from delving into Germany’s dark past, except through ambiguous means.  According to Marco Abel from his 2008 article in Cineaste, Intensifying Life: The Cinema of the “Berlin School”, elaborated upon further in his 2013 book, The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School (Screen Cultures: German Film and the Visual), this: 

“counter-cinema is built around the unusual style of realism employed in the films of this movement, a realism that presents audiences with images of a Germany that does not yet exist.  It is precisely how these films’ images and sounds work that renders them political.  They are political not because they are message-driven films but because they are made politically, thus performing a ‘redistribution of the sensible’ — a direct artistic intervention in the way politics partitions ways of doing and making, saying and seeing.”  

According to David Pendleton, programmer of the Harvard Film Archive, 

“In contrast with the markedly affective style of the New German cinema (of the 70’s) — Fassbinder’s melodramas, Herzog’s eccentricity, Wenders’ melancholy — these directors (of the 90’s) exhibit a striking coolness, at least on the surface.  In the absence of being told how to feel, the spectator is urged to confront his or her own involvement.”  

Zürcher himself has described this film as “a horror film without horror,” as the unique camera angles and protracted use of offscreen sound helps create confusion and disorientation, using alternative methods, among which include whimsical fantasy to help provide a look at a nation that longs for a better future but still hasn't found itself, like it’s still stuck in a labyrinthian puzzle with no exit plan.  Unlike the formal rigor of recent German films examining a crisis of faith, Katrin Gebbe’s Nothing Bad Can Happen (Tore Tantz) (2013), punk fascism disguised as religious parable, or Dietrich Brüggemann’s Stations of the Cross (Kreuzweg) (2014), an unwavering doctrine of religious fear and absolutism, Zürcher’s more mischievous film is perhaps closer to the zany universe embellished in Giorgos Lanthimos’s acclaimed DOGTOOTH (2009), where the off-the-wall absurdity is a world unto itself, punctuated by the musical theme of “Pulchritude,” Pulchritude By Thee More Shallows - YouTube (2:36), a hypnotic yet semi-agitated string piece from the San Francisco post-rock experimental indie group Thee More Shallows, whose constantly recurring ballet-like motif resembles the pulsating roar of a surging locomotive engine as it accelerates down the tracks.  Over time, the eccentricities of the characters are exposed, making strange remarks, concocting mysterious tales, offering weird commentary, all of which has an aura of randomness about it, creating a spontaneous feel.  But despite the quirky imagination at play, where you get the feeling something is always lurking just outside the frame, the question is does it add up to more than the sum of its parts?  Perhaps the key is staring at that tired, worn-out face of the mother, like a world-weary Kaurismäki character, whose depressive gaze tells all, or perhaps it’s the pint-sized view as seen through the clever imagination of young Clara, still too young and magical to matter all that much or to be taken seriously by the collection of droll adults in the room, often completely ignored while discovering things all on her own, much like the sleepy dreams and free-spirited rhythms of the cat, who romps around the house when she pleases, yet sees and ignores everything. 

Good Morning (Ohayô)

Yuharu Atsuta, Ozu’s cameraman, shows the usual position of the camera for the tatami shot






 

One of the sets used for Good Morning

 

 

GOOD MORNING (Ohayô)        B                

Japan  (93 mi)  1959  d:  Yasujirō Ozu

This is Ozu’s loosely made remake of I WAS BORN, BUT… (1932), a Silent film about rebellious kids that feel betrayed by their father when they see him bow in front of his boss, going on a hunger strike and demanding the boss offer him an apology, made 37 years later with sound, his second film in color, with a slight story variation.  Here it is no longer a labor dispute, but reflects a changing attitude towards the impact of television, which in 1959 is a radical instrument of change uniformly westernizing Japan.  A shot of a hula hoop near the end further dramatizes this point.  Two spoiled kids, brothers Minoru and Isamu (Kôji Shitara and Masahiko Shimazu), ages 8 and 4, are upset their neighbor has a television while his family has no intentions of buying one, wanting to watch wrestling and baseball, throwing temper tantrums when they don’t get their way, chided by their father (Chishû Ryû) for speaking loudly instead of listening, telling them “TV will produce 100 million idiots,” so the two brothers decide to go on a vow of silence until they get their way, continuing this habit at school as well, which causes quite a commotion in their small community.  Taking place in a small, closely congested, working class neighborhood where the blue-roofed houses compete for space with the nearby power lines hovering above, each indistinguishable wooden framed house is merely a few feet away, where neighbors often wander in and out of each others homes through sliding doors, always greeted with a polite welcome.  In fact, people in their own homes announce their arrival as well as their departures with a greeting to the family.  Ozu, more than any other Japanese filmmaker, pays attention to these customary details, observed through a series of repetition from fixed points of reference, where each home has an interior floor table where families eat and drink, a long hallway shot showing a room at the end of the hall, the narrow corridor between two exactly similar rows of houses, with a nearby hill just a short distance away with a walkway at the top, or a restaurant counter sequence where patrons talk and drink sake.  The social dynamics are revealed within this self-contained world, offering a glimpse of how ordinary people live their lives.  So when the two children alter this routine, failing to announce their morning greeting of “ohayô” (good morning), this minor detail disrupts the neighborhood harmony, producing a comedy of misunderstanding when people attribute invented motives that have nothing to do with reality.  

More so than other Ozu films, this is an ode to materialism and the effect of Americanization in contemporary Japanese life, something Kurosawa expressed quite differently in STRAY DOG (1949), IKIRU (1952), and HIGH AND LOW (1963), where his camera moves fluidly through crowded streets, bars, nightclubs, and amusement areas, showing a city teething with life.  Ozu on the other hand makes family dramas, where the streets are always off in the distance, as it’s the customs of the family that draw center attention, where the accumulation of material things has changed the behavior of the next generation, as they’ve selfishly learned to expect things, and parents are usually generous enough to buy what they want, as providing for their children’s happiness is their ultimate goal.  Nonetheless, despite this obvious shift from post-war poverty and sacrifice to 50’s materialism, the children have no concept whatsoever of hardship or personal sacrifice, which is what makes their war against grown-ups, the ones who have given them everything, all the more amusing.  While the film treats them as cute and adorable children, Ozu’s message is a broader one, suggesting the invasion of Western values has produced some troubling results, where parents are forced to buy their children’s love instead of earn it, and children learn to value materialism in the already conformist Japanese society, where everyone wants what their neighbor has, treating commercialism as a substitute for genuine love.  Enhancing this theme is Ozu’s use of Western orchestrated music from composer Toshirô Mayizumi, sounding very much like Mozart by the end, integrating Western influences throughout the film, where Ozu actually shrinks the stage of actual Japanese life, showing the diminished effects of their own culture, yet at the same time accentuating, through fixed point repetition, the very essence of what is customarily Japanese.          

Ozu’s signature style is expressed by longtime cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta, working with the director since the 20’s, placing the camera very low, almost to the floor, at the height of a coffee table, the tatami shot replicating the Japanese style of sitting on the floor, usually on a pillow.  Due to the simplicity of the lifestyle of the characters presented, no impressive sets or special effects are needed.  Nonetheless, as was Ozu’s habit throughout his lifetime, he preferred to shoot in a studio, even though by the late 50’s, there were New Wave Japanese directors like Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, or Kon Ichikawa who preferred shooting outdoors.  In fact, there is not a single camera movement in the whole movie, quite a contrast to Ozu’s contemporaries Kenji Mizoguchi or Akira Kurosawa who preferred long shots with breathtaking camera movements.  In this manner, Ozu retains the essence of Japanese art, as it resembles the concise form of Japanese Haiku poetry.  Ozu seems to delight in updated progress reports in the children’s ongoing war against grown-ups, where they have to resort to secret reconnaissance missions to steal food, as despite playing charades with their parents, they were unable to communicate their need for school lunch money.  While there are developing storylines, including feedback from unsuspecting teachers at school, or neighbors who spread rumors and gossip, like suggesting the parents have instilled a superiority complex into their children, there’s another intriguing romance developing between two lovers, Heichiro (Keiji Sada) and Setsuko (Yoshiko Kuga), who formally meet due to work assignments, but who brighten up at the sight of each other.  The children’s argument about adults using banal phrases and words certainly applies to this couple, as they continually avoid any sign of serious conversation, never expressing any feelings, as instead they communicate in smiles and small talk, always overly polite to one another, gracious to a fault, yet they remain overly restrained and physically apart, where there is an obvious spark that just refuses to be lit.  Anyone watching them recognizes their interest, which Ozu saves for the end of the film, framed at one of his beloved railway stations with gigantic power grids dominating the skyline.  Neither one dares go beyond the basic courtesies, talking about the weather, the beautiful day, but never each other, an old-fashioned courtship ritual that hasn’t changed perhaps for centuries.