Inner Circle Line

The young director Cho Eunhee started on this film as her graduation project at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is an 'experimental' narrative film, in which the stories of two characters, a man and a woman, are juxtaposed. Both bear the same name, Youngju. The female Youngju is a DJ in a nightclub. She feels very attracted to a mysterious club patron, who reminds her of a former love. Her housemate Jin, who keeps her feelings for Youngju hidden, watches it all with distress. The male Youngju is a metro-train driver and involved in the death of a suicidal soldier. Plagued by guilt, he is reminded of his own military service and a former love. Increasingly obsessed by the past, he becomes alienated from his girlfriend Hyun. The storylines come together when Jin can no longer bear living with someone who rejects her. The setting, the typical big city - in this case Seoul - could have been any big city in the world. The beautiful, stylised visual approach focuses attention on the sense of melancholy that surrounds the doomed loves. (SdH)