An omnibus film in three parts. The American independent film maker Jon Jost is at present teaching in Seoul, South Korea. Two of his students, Moon Si-Hyun and Lee Sang-Woo, both made one part and the master himself was responsible for the last part.
Lee Sang-Woo, who last year saw his début film Tropical Manila have its world première in Rotterdam, made the first part, Karma. Lee Sang-Woo himself played the leading role: a lonely man who falls in love with a shop dummy that's been thrown away. He drags his lover everywhere, until she gets stolen.
The second part is by Moon Si-Hyun and is called The Silence. Here, too, Lee Sang-Woo plays an important role: the loving and caring husband of a woman who does nothing and says nothing. She only appears lively in flashbacks.
The two parts are beautifully photographed and classically told, and are closely linked. Mentor Jon Jost took a different approach in his part, entitled Mr Right. In stark contrast, he chose a hyper-realistic approach, but here, too, there's a role for Lee Sang-Woo, who keeps everything together. The three parts have more coherence thematically than stylistically; all are about difficult love relations and the struggle to leave a lover. The Korean parts are consciously strange and perverted, and Jost allows his sober observation to clash with that in a fascinating way. (GjZ)