Love in the Shadows

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)

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