Writer: Yoo Yeong-ah
Production CO.: Liyang Film
Distributor: CJ Entertainment
Starring: Yoo Ah-in, Choi Ji-woo, Lee Mi-yeon, Kang Ha-neul
At the very beginning, this film clarifies its relation to Facebook. The opening credits sequence, of which design reflects its orientation to Facebook, is followed by the first scene in which Kang Ha-neul (the musician henceforth) and EJ communicates via a social media service. This is an unnecessary introduction of relationship because, whereas the musician is deaf, he can converse with others quite naturally by reading their lips. Nevertheless, the director consistently posited Facebook at several crucial narrative points to let it push the narrative forward. However, the film's view on Facebook is too optimistic to persuade spectators who already know its negative impact on modern society.
Unfortunately, its excessive optimism is not the real problem. On the contrary to the filmmaker's direction, the actual significance of Facebook is so trivial that the spectator doubts the reason why it is frequently shown. At least superficially, the director tries to describe the phenomenon in modern society that the social network service generates. The characters strive to intrigue or test one another, and get depressed when they do not receive a desirable response. However, since the filmmaker has too much of ambition to praise the value of Facebook, he eventually harms the logistics of the entire film. The narrative is severely fabricated to combine distant characters, who hardly have met each other, through Facebook. As a result, the Facebook sequences turn out to be unfaithful to our reality, and what the spectator only sees are expositions of brand-new devices.
At this point, one can argue that this film did not have to mainly deal with Facebook because it is basically a diegetic device to unfold romance. However, the romance itself is loose and unreasonable. For instance, the initial relationship between Kim Joo-hyuk (the chef henceforth) and Choi Ji-woo (the flight attendant or the attendant henceforth) was that of a tenant and a landlord. But after the chef breaks up with his girlfriend and the attendant was embezzled, the two strangers become housemates, only because they feel themselves "too pitiful". There is no pain from the aftermath of break, nor financial obstacles. Such elements are briefly suggested by direct quotes but have no impact on the characters. Given this, they seem like living in the wonderland where they don't need to labor and the verisimilitude of the film becomes void. This flaw is also observable from the other couples. The sub-narrative between Yoo Ah-in (the actor hereafter) and Lee Mi-yoen (the writer hereafter) has no concern of the effect after their revelation while the musician and Lee Som (the PD henceforth) 's love is simply explicated by love-at-first-sight.
The romance of this film is loose because the filmmaker's direction was loose on a false assumption that the conventional melodramatic norms would function strongly. Then what is the norm?: fetish of absence.
I call this "fetish" because various absences in this film were used to explicate the obsessions among characters. Below is a list of absences that exist in each relationship.
The actor & the writer: Absence of father
The chef & the attendant: Absence of mother
The musician & the PD: Absence of normal physicality (= disability)
The second absence on the list actually belongs to none of them. It functions too histrionically to combine all characters. For that pitiful reason, the chef inevitably became a pretentious man to find the lost child. Among the three couples, the worst is the third one since the filmmaker fetishizes the musician's physical disability. Indeed, his disability is not truly understood by the PD but rather functions as an archetypal point that enables her to possess him. Eventually, the two reconcile at an airport but what she really cherishes turns out to be his facial appearance: "I forgive you because you are handsome". This is a pathetic commodification of disability, not an insightful consideration of condition of love.
As a result, remained are close up shots of top stars and excessive emphases on product placements (PPL). Of course, it is a reasonable formula to present such close ups to let the film pay itself because CJ is the distributor, and it casted both Korean wave stars like Yoo Ah-in and other domestic stars. I have no idea if the director was too preoccupied to that formula or abandoned control over the production due to overwhelming intervention by CJ. Nevertheless, he blurred most of backgrounds by exaggerated use of soft focus. Ironically, such blurring was not completely bad because there was no trace of human living in those nascent locations. Those were rather like model houses for apartment promotion. Anyway, due to the excessive blurring, I thought that I was seeing rear projection scene that was loved by classical Hollywood filmmakers during the golden age. I praise the director's courage to revere the classical maestros in 21st century.
At the same time, I was surprised that the focus did never miss any product placement. In this sense, it was the most hilarious moment when the writer quit her job after leaving a text: "Stop being distracted by PPL and focus on the quality of your work." Maybe it could be the director's sarcastic self-reflexive representation.
Were the players' performances exceptional? So-so (but not all of them). However, all of them
The romance of this film is loose because the filmmaker's direction was loose on a false assumption that the conventional melodramatic norms would function strongly. Then what is the norm?: fetish of absence.
I call this "fetish" because various absences in this film were used to explicate the obsessions among characters. Below is a list of absences that exist in each relationship.
The actor & the writer: Absence of father
The chef & the attendant: Absence of mother
The musician & the PD: Absence of normal physicality (= disability)
The second absence on the list actually belongs to none of them. It functions too histrionically to combine all characters. For that pitiful reason, the chef inevitably became a pretentious man to find the lost child. Among the three couples, the worst is the third one since the filmmaker fetishizes the musician's physical disability. Indeed, his disability is not truly understood by the PD but rather functions as an archetypal point that enables her to possess him. Eventually, the two reconcile at an airport but what she really cherishes turns out to be his facial appearance: "I forgive you because you are handsome". This is a pathetic commodification of disability, not an insightful consideration of condition of love.
As a result, remained are close up shots of top stars and excessive emphases on product placements (PPL). Of course, it is a reasonable formula to present such close ups to let the film pay itself because CJ is the distributor, and it casted both Korean wave stars like Yoo Ah-in and other domestic stars. I have no idea if the director was too preoccupied to that formula or abandoned control over the production due to overwhelming intervention by CJ. Nevertheless, he blurred most of backgrounds by exaggerated use of soft focus. Ironically, such blurring was not completely bad because there was no trace of human living in those nascent locations. Those were rather like model houses for apartment promotion. Anyway, due to the excessive blurring, I thought that I was seeing rear projection scene that was loved by classical Hollywood filmmakers during the golden age. I praise the director's courage to revere the classical maestros in 21st century.
At the same time, I was surprised that the focus did never miss any product placement. In this sense, it was the most hilarious moment when the writer quit her job after leaving a text: "Stop being distracted by PPL and focus on the quality of your work." Maybe it could be the director's sarcastic self-reflexive representation.
Were the players' performances exceptional? So-so (but not all of them). However, all of them
merely exhausted their pre-existed image.
I was embarrassed when some audiences left during the screening. However, some others were actively responding to the film panting and mourning, so I thought this film at least succeeded to satisfied a certain pool of spectators. I appreciate AMC Empire enormously for screening such film gently.
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