Night and Day
A fugitive artist from Korea escapes to Paris in order to avoid a stiff prison sentence, only to find his love for the wife he left behind counterbalanced by his passion for the City of Lights. Sung-nam is a successful painter who was caught drunkenly smoking marijuana at a small gathering. Now threatened with an extended stay in jail, Sung-nam packs his bags and boards a plan bound for Paris. Once there, he settles down in a ramshackle hostel run by an older Korean man and located in the 14th Arrondissement. There's precious little for Sung-nam to do in Paris, so he spends most of his time aimlessly wandering along the Seine and through the city parks. Though he eventually happens upon his ex-girlfriend Min-sun, their current connection is tenuous at best and he can't help but think about the wife in Korea that he left behind. Later, after befriending a pretty art student named Hyun-ju and her flatmate Yu-jeong, Sung-nam becomes hopelessly smitten with the affectionate stranger. more..
Director: Hong Sang-Soo
Starring: Hwang Soo-jung, Park Eun-heui, Seo Min-Yeong, Kim Yeong-ho, Kim Yu-Jin
Filmmakers from Jacques Rivette to Hou Hsiao-hsien have treated the City of Light like Aliceâ??s rabbit hole; writer-director Hong Sang-soo similarly embraces the fantasy, but goes one step further in this extraordinary character study by fully erasing the line that separates the actual from the fictional.
Very Korean in its emotional content, while also preserving a quizzical distance that is quite French, picture is one of his lightest and most easily digestible metaphysical meals to date.
Some of it is hilarious, some sad, all filtered through Hong's inimitably wry take on the unbearable lightness of being . . . himself.
Regardless of critics' assertion of a change in style, Hong core group of intellectual admirers will still find pleasure in his cerebral film language, nuanced dialogue, and droll observations of a Korean abroad.
Korean director Hong Sang-soo unleashes yet another emotionally stunted antihero in Night and Day, a rambling study of male arrested development.
Best Screenplay
Asia Pacific Screen Awards (2008)
Sang-soo Hong
Berlin International Film Festival (2008)
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