CoMo No. 5: South Korea (September, 2022)

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sally
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CoMo No. 5: South Korea (September, 2022)

Post by sally »

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CoMoSoKo declared open!
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sally
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Post by sally »

got a lot to catch up on, luckily there are zillions here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/KoreanFilm

personal challenges: test fixed idea that all contemporary indie korean films (crushed under the weight of HSS) feature arsehole film directors/writers as protagonists; watch more lee man-hee, shin sang-ok melodramas (can anything rival a drifting story / 표류도 for naruse-level greatness?); read vaseline buddha (only korean book i have on my bookcase)

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also, enjoy ASMR. would not want to be a woman in modern south korea, the beauty standards are masochism level (i would rebel so badly i'd end up with a face full of tattoos or something) but i love the asmr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcillp-54z8
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Post by Holdrüholoheuho »

during MFDF Ji.hlava 2020 i have seen two South Korean films...
astroflash wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:53 am "Fascinations" watchlist (15/20)...
...
28/10 (6)
...
TRACKED (Cho Seoungho, 2020)
Black-and-white shots of a road with shots of bicycles, manipulated into abstract collages. It goes to the limits of acceleration, the centrifugal force that is geometrically enclosed after a first release, unleashed and unlimited.
...
7/11 (5)
...
ONCE UPON A TIME (Ji-Yoon Park, 2020)
A film poem in which human consciousness intertwines with the element of water. The leitmotif flowing through the entire work is memory, the eternal clash between the urge to look back and the awareness of space and time ahead.
so, will look for (and try to see) more of this kind...
f.e. → https://jiyoonsfilm.com/works
or → https://www.ji-hlava.com/search?s=south+korea

and gonna finally watch at least two Hong Sang-soo (didn't watch any yet).
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Post by Lencho of the Apes »

A quick plug for Bumpkin Oh-Bok, a very likeable rural melodrama from '63 or so, pop-movie with a lot of heart/soul and nothing brainy to speak of. Sorta Ismael Rodriguez style -- world-building like Animas Trujano and mushy sentiment like Tizoc.
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Post by sally »

LOL!!! i have three unseen of his lined up and possibly gonna rewatch one of the 2010's...gonna be so disoriented by october :)
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Post by sally »

forever with you - yu hyun-mok (1958) #CoMoSoKo

came here to say glacial movie but fabulous cinematography only to see that most of letterboxd already said such. nevermind! i am drenched in the melodrama now and ready for more!

there were legs akimbo cropping up periodically, not sure of significance

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CLASSIC BAD GUY POSE
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RANDOM SKELETON
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Post by rischka »

korea como :cool: i'll watch the housemaid since i'm probably the only one who hasn't seen it
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Post by rischka »

Worst.housemaid.ever
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Post by greennui »

It's no Woman of Fire
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Post by rischka »

Is this a sequel or a remake 🤔 I like the colors!

Almost hilarious the pains taken to make the man an innocent victim of all these scheming women :lol: even more extreme than film noir! The psychedelic flashbacks are awesome. This one shows a lot more of her trauma - practically 70s grindhouse level - and i liked the ending of us against the world

this is the guy who did Io island - another 'secret power of women in a world dominated by men' kinda plot that we watched at mubi. also pretty psychedelic if i remember right
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Post by rischka »

where's ofrene maybe she's working on subs for an unsung classic (:
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Post by Holdrüholoheuho »

HAHAHA (Hong Sang-soo, 2010) #CoMoSoKo

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Post by rischka »

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cheers
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Post by ofrene »

never knew this... but I don't know classic korean cinema that much:(

some recommendation which can find on youtube (need login)

Homebound by Lee Man-hee (my favorite of his)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHqcmsN ... lassicFilm

The Devil’s Stairway by Lee Man-hee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XnJ7z ... lassicFilm

Gilsotteum by Im Kwon-taek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtDHc88 ... lassicFilm

The Oldest Son by Lee Doo-yong (haven't seen it but heard it feels like Tokyo Story made by Seijun Suzuki)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrXL2Q ... lassicFilm

and it's not on youtube but for 2010 poll, Bleak Night is one of the most impressive debut by korean director of 21th century and definitely worth a look
(though not on my 2010 list and his second film was bomb)
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Post by sally »

ofrene wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:58 pm some recommendation

thank you! :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: there are so many, i didn't know how to choose :)
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Post by rischka »

awesome, thank you!!
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Post by sally »

daytime drinking - noh young-seok (2008) #CoMoSoKo

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Post by Lencho of the Apes »

Some good stuff:

A Public Prosecutor And A Teacher , 1948. Shot silent with some intertitles now and then, AND THEN they post-synched it with narration performed by one of those old-style reader/interpreters, so it's the only example I know of where that presentation strategy is reproduced for modern audiences. Didn't find much 'movie' pleasure in it, but it's a terrific anthropology/history lesson.

The Road To Sampo , 1975. Unexpected, out-of-nowhere delight. Two hobos and a bar-girl trekking cross-country, so it's big-time poverty com, but weirdly aestheticized, like a blatantly literary Jim Jarmusch working through his Beckett fixation -- lots of Didi and Gogo energy in a Stranger Than Paradise framework. Act Three shifts unexpectedly into big! feels! romance-melodrama, and it's super lachrymose and still works really well, Bleak Encounters territory, even though I didn't expect the movie to go in that direction.

Also, it is THE MOTHERFUCKING SNOWIEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.
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Post by rischka »

i think sally gave me road to sampo when i was doing road movies genre in the cup. so i watched another lee man-hee, homebound, linked by ofrene above. extreme melodrama with extremely stylish and moody photography, i liked it a lot. gonna watch the devil's stairway too!
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Post by Lencho of the Apes »

The only other Lee Man-Hee I've seen was Break Up The Chain, 1971. Action movie, kind of a heist thing iirc, and it maybe has some cultish appeal but it didn't thrill me.
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Post by ofrene »

Break Up The Chain was only walk out Lee Man-Hee movie... like Lee Man-Hee a lot but have no interest about that movie at all

A Water Mill is another good movie of his. feel a bit of Shohei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G21imse ... lassicFilm
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Post by sally »

i am 20 mins into homebound and fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck is it good. prepare for screenshots.....
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Post by sally »

nah, i think i'm gonna have to do this as i go along, otherwise it's too much

homebound - lee man-hee (1967) #CoMoSoKo

first, she's just chopped and bound and separated and imprisoned in frames within frames like she was a victim of a psychotic naruse

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here her head (face obscured from us) is decapitated into the sky, alongside the roof pointing upwards into her hidden dreams
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here we can see that fucking 'woman as country' trope (BIG SIGH) as the map is literally sprouting from her head like a halo
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well, yes exactly (see previous comment) altho also note that sainthood is thus represented by the gaze out of the window which we all share in this shot
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this shot even stronger, she raises her head in wistfulness, the dreaming extending up the vertical pole and OUT OF THE FRAME - the potency of which i became attuned to after reading roberto calasso's book on tiepolo where it occurs frequently in his etchings and which calasso aligns with an extension from reality into god - thus the snake staff of moses (the avatar, the represented image, which can cure the venom of the original, JUST FROM THE SIGHT OF IT) thus the crucifixion....
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anyway, out from the underworld and on with the movie
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Post by sally »

aha, did i make my point above?
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fabulous film, lots of standing round and just looking, like a silent movie with occasional sounds, and almost bressonian hands & feet...

and more screenshots

going into the future whilst the past (traditional dress) goes by
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some LOLs
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another halo
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and as aforementioned silent film fan i appreciated the train through the head
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Post by rischka »

wonderful work! i couldn't make screenshots from youtube on my tv but definitely spectacular. i liked evil stairs too, sort of gothic horror plot but not as inspiring cinematography
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Post by sally »

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

They [the magpies] are numbered by millions. Every day in the year, except the seventh day of the seventh month, the air is full of them. On that date, however, they have a standing engagement every year. They are all expected to be away from streets and houses, for every well-bred magpie is then far up in the sky building a bridge across the River of Stars, called the Milky Way. With their wings for the cables, and their heads to form the floor of the bridge, they make a pathway for lovers on either side of the silver stream.


https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev/sta ... 2010047488
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Post by sally »

still reading vaseline buddha and now musing over how many people in the world wondered whether this mistake is by the narrator, the author, the editor, or what....

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Post by sally »

i guess wajda does sound a little bit like varda....
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Post by Holdrüholoheuho »

LIST (Hong Sang-soo, 2011) #CoMoSoKo
6. Find someone to play badminton with.
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