北村方向

Part 1：

Although this movie was made in 2011, the director intended to shoot it in black and white, along with the sudden and direct zoom-in sometimes making it look like an old movie. Additionally, the zoom-in seems to remind the audience that “we are shooting a movie here and what you are seeing is presented deliberately”.

The Day He Arrives is similar as Café Lumiere to some degree, which does not have a clear storyline and focuses on the depiction of relationships and complex emotions. Moreover, both these two movies feature repetitive scenes of bars, meals, drinking, as well as stationary camera and long takes. However, unlike the silence in Café Lumiere, dialogues and monologue of the leading character are the major part of this film.

The movie satirizes men like Seong-jun by depicting his relationship with other people, especially with women. What really interesting and sarcastic is the comparison between how he acts in front of his lovers as well as his female fans and how he acts in front of other people, like those film students and his old partners. In front of the females, he likes to show off knowledge by saying something abstract. He seems confident and powerful in the relationship with women as he is in charge of their interactions and he always pretends to be the role of a life mentor of those women. However, he is kind of a failure in reality. He made four films before he turned to be a professor, which earned him no fame or money. Not many people have watched his films, even the students of film studies have never heard of him or his films (though they claim they watched them, but I believe they are lying out of polite given their expressions). For example, after he had sex with women, he refused to leave his contact information and asked them not to contact him or see him again in the future. However, when he gets along with men, he tends to act in an obsequious way. He called Young-ho for many times and asked him to call him back. At the end of the movie, he leaves his phone number to an unfamiliar man willingly and he suggested one man he used to know to have a drink with him while the man just ignored his invitation intentionally.

The viewpoints about randomness and coincidence in the movie are also very interesting. When something happens repeatedly to us, we may think it is written or there must be some reasons behind it. However, the movie shows that it just happens randomly and there is no certain explanation for it. For example, Seong-jun comes across an actress for many times, which can be a romantic beginning of a cheesy love story, while nothing really happens between Seong-jun and this actress in the movie. Seong-jun just wants to have sex with women instead of building relationships, therefore, in that sense, the so-called “coincidence” acting as an important role in love movies is not needed here. He says that “I love you”, “I cannot live without you” or “I will give you a happy life” to women on the bed but after the sex, he can leave them without any reluctance and without any willingness for further contact.

Part 2：

I’ll talk about the portrayals of male characters in Hong sang soo’s movies. Hong sang soo has made around 20 films and what is interesting is that the leading male characters in these movies are pretty similar from many aspects. We will discuss their shared features and how they are presented in the day he arrives.

Before talking about the male characters in movies, I would like to introduce Hong sang soo very briefly. Hong is a famous korean film director and screenwriter, as well as a professor at Konkuk University. He has experience of being a student of arts both in Korea and U.S.

Outside of his movies, he was known for being reported to have an extramarital affair with an famous korean actress, who had appeared in hong’s movies and much younger than him. His wife publicly complained that hong abandoned her and their daughters.

The reason I mentioned Hong’s career and personal life is because when we look through the male characters created by hong, we can find many similarities between Hong and his characters. We assume that maybe to some degree, all of them are acting as projections of Hong or the class represented by him.

Now let’s back to our topic, the male characters in hong’s movies. These characters share lots of common traits, the most observable one is the similar occupation or social identity. Most of them are doing jobs regarding films or arts. Here is a brief summary of the occupation of male leads in hong’s movies. They are writers, painters, professors, and mostly are film directors. The features of this kind of males are that they are usually publicly regarded as intellectuals or key opinion leader in a society. Also, they are admired by other people, especially females. In the day he arrives, all the women who appeared in this movie express their appreciation for Seong-jun or his films. In particular, the female student and the bar owner fell in love with him, and the female professor Bo-ran showed strong curiosity and interest in Seong-jun.

However, what hond is doing in his films is unlike traditional films, which depict male intellectuals as heroic pioneers of emancipation or persecuted dissidents under social reforms and political movements. Hong is aimed to make the disenchantment of intellectuals. Disenchantment means the cultural rationalization and devaluation of religion apparent in modern society in social sciences. I borrow this term here. It means that Hong tries to reveal the unseen side of intellectuals in previous movies, make them not unreachable or even respectable anymore and break people’s perfect illusions about intellectuals.

Firstly, those intellectuals in Hong’s movies are mostly socially unrecognized. On the one hand, their career paths are not successful as expected. For example, Seong-jun made four films before he left seoul and became a professors in a county, but these films earned him no fame or money. Even the students of film studies cannot recognize him and did not watch his films. Though some of them say they did, but I guess it is out of polite based on their awkward expressions. On the other side, unlike women, the other men in the film tends to have kind of negative views about Seong-jun. Young-ho, his close friend, said seong-jun’s piano performance is embarrassing. Kyung-jin, the ex-actor, claimed that seong-jun is selfish, untrustworthy and cares for money more than friendship.

Secondly, hong achieves the disenchantment by focusing on the intellectuals daily life and exposing how they deal with relationships and lust instead of putting them in social movements. The intellectuals in movies behave indifferently about political or social issues. In the loads of dialogues in this movie, the males mainly talk about women, relationships, and personal conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, ironically, those intellectuals are usually involved in unethical relationships which are not highly accepted by the society like Hong himself. They always have sex impulsively with strangers after drinking alcohol. Additionally, the professors in hong’s movies always have sexual relationships with their female students, not only in the day he arrives, but also lost in the mountains, oki’s movie and our sunhi, while seong-jun actually knows clearly that this kind of relationship is not appropriate.

Another thing differentiates the intellectuals in hong’s movies from traditional heroic ones is that they look coward and hypocritical. For example, seong-jun packages himself by abstract philosophy viewpoints, psychological tricks and clumsy performance in front of women to maintain his identity as an intellectual. However, the alcohol can demolish this package and make him an ordinary man longing for sex.

By looking through these shared features of male characters in hong’s movies, I think the disenchantment of intellectuals make the characters look more realistic and make audience more connected with them.

Hong makes fun of them in his movies, but the movies also convey an idea that these attributes are borned with men.

Hong’s sarcastic and pathetic presentation of male intellectuals can be considered as a self-mocking because those intellectuals are exactly projections of him or the class he represents.

一起喝酒的后辈叫宝兰， 艺珍的酒吧叫小说， 另一个酒馆叫多情， 弹了两次的曲子是肖邦升C小调第20号夜曲。

醉了酒的柳成俊走到庆珍家附近，心里嘀咕着： “不知不觉又走到她家楼前了，她还住在这儿吗？都快过去两年了，还住在这儿吗？” 他走进她家楼道，走上楼，把耳朵贴近她家门前，心里继续嘀咕：“还在吗？现在还在吗？” 然后敲响了门。

在谈到人生的偶然时，成俊说：“就是这些没有理由的事聚到一起构成了我们的人生，然后我们故意从其中挑选几个当做理由，连成一条思考的主线罢了。 就是那几个点连成的，我们就管他叫理由。”

成俊和宝兰在门外抽烟的时候，下了首尔的第一场雪。 他们三人第一晚喝完酒出来，英浩兄说： “突然想起以前，过去的日子。 夜晚的空气都是过去的味道。”

这是目前为止，我最喜欢的一部洪尚秀。

洪尚秀的片子没少看。 今天早晨5点多就醒了， 选了《北村方向》看， 刚好看完，出字幕， 又睡过去了。 洪导演片子里的男主， 大多是文艺分子， 导演居多， 然后是演员， 艺术家。 洪尚秀片子里的导演也好，演员也好， 都属于那种地下级别， 一般状态处于拍（演）过几部没有公映过， 在小范围内传播过， “全国人民”没听说过， 但会有一定数量（哪怕是几十个，也是一定数量啊）的铁杆粉丝， 尤其是女铁杆粉丝。 文青的虚伪，两性之间、同性之间的微妙， 是洪导演的三板斧。 三板斧在这里不是贬义， 《一代宗师》里， 勇哥打不过叶问，说：你们咏春就摊，膀，伏三板斧。 叶问说管用就行。 洪导演对文青的虚伪，两性之间、同性之间那种微妙的刻画， 少有导演能出其右， 深入骨髓。 洪导演电影里的文青， 都会憋着一股子想上别人的劲， 但是表面却喜欢各种高大上， 满嘴跑哲学和道德。 比如《北村方向》里的导演， 遇到很像最钟爱的ex的酒吧老板娘第一秒起， 就在想怎么把她上了。 最终上了后， 满嘴说的是“我希望你幸福” “我爱你” “我真的希望你好” “我会让你幸福的”。 第一次看洪导演片的人搞不好以为这种走向会是 一个美好的爱情结局。 镜头一闪， 第二天酒吧老板娘送导演出门， 以为导演的台词会是：等着我，我会回来接你的。 结果是连电话都不给， 只是很高端的叮嘱老板娘记住： 1，要多认识好的人。 2，喝酒不要喝大了。 3，要坚持写日记。 ... ... 而再之前， 喝大了， 跑到之前纠缠不清的女友那， 说着“我发现我不能没有你” “没有你我活不下去”“我爱你”， 把这姑娘彻底撩拨了， 干完之后， 镜头一闪， 导演站在门口：我们以后还是不要再联系了，对我们都好。 姑娘：发短信可以不。 导演：短信也不要发。 ... ... 导演很久没拍片， 隐居到“地方上”教书， 来首尔找哥散心， 除了哥谁也不见。 哥呢，则带了一个他很珍惜的后辈（美女 电影评论教授）。 美女教授很仰慕导演。 导演说的每句话都充满了哲学和反思， 美女导演眼里流露出欲望的光芒。 哥看在眼里， 心里十分不是滋味。 比如导演起身去弹钢琴， 美女教授惊呼你还会弹钢琴， 哥说这都什么啊， 他是先学会左手弹， 再学会右手弹， 然后俩手一起弹。 美女教授说管他， 反正好听。 导演一阐述哲思， 哥就很郁闷。 但好在导演还算能克制， 知道那是哥喜欢的女人， 任美女教授百般撩拨， 还是守住了裤腰带。 哥也看在眼里， 虽然对导演抢走风头心里不爽， 但也觉得导演还算义气， 没有见色杀友。 美女教授似乎也知道导演不接她的炮， 是因为导演觉得对不住哥。 于是更加郁闷。 最后在饭桌上美女导演和哥都顾左而言他的爆发了情绪， 导演滑头的避开了漩涡的中心。 要不是又更美丽的像EX的老板娘成了他的目标， 估计在美女教授的攻势下， 哥也要被“去你大爷的哥”了。 只能随便写写， 语言根本表达不出来洪导演电影阐述的1/N， 很多东西真的只能意会， 不能言传， 洪导演对这些人性的刻画，描述， 我是转述不出来了。 只能去看。