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Late last year, I had the opportunity to be on a student short film selection jury for the Korean National University of Arts’ School of Film, TV & Multimedia. Although I myself teach students majoring in film, I was pleasantly surprised. Among the submissions that nearly reached 100 titles, 80 fell short of artistry and cinematic quality, another ten showed potential, and the remaining works were outstanding. What impressed me the most was that these student films did not exhibit a common trend that could have classified them into one or two groups. I felt relieved that it would be these diverse talents who would be making feature works in the near future.

Lately, Korean independent cinema has been stagnant or at a standstill. O Muel’s Jiseul, which received acclaim at various international film festivals and saw favorable results at the domestic box office, is probably the only successful case. Annually, dozens of independent films manage to reach theaters, but rarely do they score beyond 10,000 admissions. One can blame the limited distribution and exhibition system, but it is true that there have rarely been works from new talents. Like its commercial counterpart, the independent scene has become quite standardized as it repeats itself and explores the same subjects. This is similar to the thoughts I’ve been having since I started my other job as the Executive Programmer of the Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) last year. I’m suspecting that the subject matters that would have normally been absorbed by mainstream commercial films in the mid-2000s have lost their adventurous spirits and began to be used in low-budget independent films instead.

However, it seems that things are changing. In an environment where there are more than 100 film schools around the country, there is an excessive supply of human resources when compared to the scale of the film business. Nevertheless, there is a consistent flow of new talent emanating from these academic institutions. In a mainstream industry where directing opportunities have been scarce in recent years, young filmmakers have experienced limitations as they attempt to enter the industry. Accordingly, many have been making their feature debuts through low-budget independent filmmaking. Moving into my second year of programming for JIFF, I became optimistic for the emergence of new films that may be weak for now, but will definitely grow stronger over time. I would like to mention a few titles introduced at this year’s JIFF that have the potential to attract a lot of attention.

 

PARK Jung-bum, who received acclaim with his debut film The Journals of Musan (2010), has consistently been productive, but unfortunately various complications led him to cancel the production of his second feature. His mid-length film Alive, included in JIFF’s omnibus project Short! Short! Short!, was going to be extended into feature length with the addition of supplementary shoots, but budget restraints eventually held the film from completion. This year, with a shift in gears as our omnibus feature ‘Jeonju Digital Project’ has grown into a full-fledged feature program, PARK Jung-bum was able to finish Alive and realize the aesthetic ambition he had let go of for years in a very personal manner. Like The Journals of Musan, this film will be heavily rooted in the director’s personal experience as he not only directs but also stars. Alive is set deep in the mountains of Kang-won province at a fermented bean sauce factory where a young man works and lives with his psychologically damaged sister and niece. The film tells the story of the young man’s desperate struggle to deal with poverty and his miserable family ties.

The most impressive aspect of this film is the multidimensional details of the young man’s environment despite the simplicity of the main storyline, which gives the film a tragic aura that pushes it beyond the conventions of melodrama. A number of scenes have multiple characters, which is not so surprising considering the fact that it is set in a workplace with many laborers. Unlike his debut film The Journals of Musan, which utilizes a hand-held look, this film choreographs its movements with more contemplation. With the addition of sensitively positioned textures of light, the film projects considerable visual energy. Although the film is basically a social critique that digs into the structural system of poverty, there are much more intricate layers to the film as it also draws upon elements of psychological drama by exposing the characters’ internal complexities. Moreover, the main character’s (played by the director himself) physical and psychological pain is easily conveyed through the numerous scenes of labor that are especially striking.

Frankly speaking, as I write this essay, I have not seen the final version of Alive as the film, which I’ve seen two thirds of, has gone way over schedule. Facing extremely challenging conditions, most of the crew except for the DP and Lighting Director had to be replaced, and new scenes the director was writing on set continuously had to be added. If the film festival schedule had not been fixed, the director would have continued shooting until the end of the year. The film was originally scheduled to start production last December but was re-scheduled to February due to a never ending pre-production process. Even this date was pushed back in accordance with the evercautious director’s wishes. However, looking at the edited draft, one can assume why the director so stubbornly stood his ground and pushed his crew to the edge. This film will probably become one of the most important Korean independent films of the year.

 

Another film to take note of is SHIN Yeon-shick’s The Avian Kind, which is also a film included in the Jeonju Digital Project. SHIN Yeon-shick is among the league of filmmakers who have been underestimated among international film festivals and domestic film critics. The arthouse aspect of his previous works such as The Fair Love (2010) and The Russian Novel (2012), which demonstrated a strong focus on storytelling, could have made it difficult to understand the sensibility of his visual style. To make matters worse, his most commercial film Rough Play failed at the box office despite the relatively large scale of its distribution. The Avian Kind steps away from any commercial influences as the director seeks to realize his own ideas. The subject matter is based on a slightly disconcerting premise where a husband searches for his wife who disappears after she started believing that she will become a bird. At the end of the film, he ends up encountering an unbelievable and surprising outcome. Although the film unravels as a road movie, it is far from the typical road movies shown in the West, which showcase anxiety-ridden main characters in search of identity and a new world. Instead, the film attempts to connect with an invisible and unknown mystical world that the director presents as a straightforward drama rather than a tale of science fiction.

 

These are the two films I would strongly recommend to see at this year’s JIFF. There are a few other works I would like to mention as well. They are films that strategically chose a different type of narrative and visual style in order to express a new style. I would first like to mention LEE Kyung-sub’s debut feature Miss the Train. It is the kind of film that persistently conceals the main storyline as it moves along, intertwining reality and the surreal. It creates a strange mood where the living and the dead cohabitate in a poetic and dreamlike exorcism. There are also films that seemingly follow the rules of well-organized drama, yet strive for provocative themes within the boundaries of low-budget filmmaking. YOO Young-sun’s The Wicked provides a basic explanation of its premise, but pushes beyond this to showcase the vengeful acts of violence of a female character who is the devil incarnate. YANG Ji-eun’s Sookhee tells the tale of a strange woman who heals critical patients with sex. She has the personality of a little girl, but she is the mother of a young child, and even in her attitude towards men, she shifts between a vulnerable young girl and a strict but caring mother. She handpicks the critical patients to serve them as a care worker behind her husband’s back, but the film shows no desire to expose her character’s secrets.

 

The witty satire Monkeys is the debut feature of webtoon author JUNG Byeong-sik, in which his younger brother and filmmaker JUNG Byeong-gil stars as the main character. Unlike other Korean films with similar themes that depict the lives of twentysomethings as victims of Korea’s ever-expanding irregular worker economic structure, this film refrains from portraying the twenties generation with self-pity or from the hierarchal gaze of adults, or even with dry objectivity. Instead, it uses black humor that brazenly peers into their lives, mocking them while also thoughtfully taking a rational viewpoint. I hope these films introduced at JIFF will receive well-deserved attention and opportunities to meet with audiences from all around the world.

 

By KIM Young-jin(Film Critic)