Love And… review [LKFF 2015]: “Aimed solely at an art crowd.”

Love And… review: “Never boring or frustrating, but it can become rather tedious.”

I’ve noticed a trend with a couple of films I have not been enamoured with this year, and that is the taking of a short film and expanding it to feature length. Although it can be done, I always feel as though there is a desperation and polluting of the original idea. Love and… isn’t terrible by any means, but the avant-garde nature does seem confusing and tacked on. The film, split into four chapters, makes the same points using different techniques.

The first chapter, shot over a few days, sees a young woman (Han Ye Ri) visit her grandfather (Ahn Sung Ki) in a psychiatric ward. They have a chat and the young woman thanks the janitor (Moon So Ri) who has shown great care for the old man. The old man peels an apple and offers it to the janitor, but after she knocks it out of her hand accidentally, he chases her with a knife. Shot in gorgeous black and white that has a slightly silverish/cream tone to it, it’s a beautifully short look at love that turns from sweetness into a tense and worrying chase, but then back to sweetness as the old man reveals he is just playing a game. The three performances, for how little they are on screen, are very moving. Ahn in particular grabs all the smiles, both bittersweet and joyful, in what very little he has to do.

Towards the end of the first chapter somebody suddenly calls “Cut” and the film jumps to colour and we realise everything we’ve seen is just part of a film. It feels disorientating, and kind of betrays what we have just seen. We then follow a gaffer (Park Hae Il) who goes on to argue with the director about not understanding love at all. Kicked off set, he decides to steal a reel of film. That’s pretty much it for the first chapter, and what was originally meant to be the entire short film. It’s smart and thought provoking, without being too bloated. There’s a nice pace that runs throughout, and it really would have made an excellent short.

Director Zhang Lu, then decided to film the location used after the actors had gone. This results in the second chapter where we see familiar locations around the (now abandoned) hospital, shot on 10mm film. There’s something haunting about visiting locations that were once shot in crystal clear digital and filled with actors and life, now relegated to grainy imagery and ghostly desertion. There’s a 1st person feel as we are guided through the location and discover weird images, such a bottle seemingly spinning all by itself. These images are used to get the audience thinking, but they really are an afterthought. The third chapter, also the funniest but most bizarre, sees clips taken from the actors’ previous movies, having all sound removed, and having dialogue inserts changing what was originally said to coincide with Chapter 1. Most notably used is Bong Joon Ho’s Memories Of Murder, which Love And… uses the interrogation scene from. These moments are funny, if familiar with the original films, but are pretty much the same as a re-subtitled clip on youtube, such as the ones of Hitler from Downfall.

The final chapter replays the events of the first film, but without the actors. We can hear them, as the sound from the first chapter is used, but we do not see them. Instead the same shots are used, but are now empty. Again, Zhang Lu is showing off the power of the locations and it goes to show the power of actors’ presence, but aside from that it’s rather stale and bland. It will certainly be of interest to some, as it’s the same as removing a musical track, or watching scenes before CGI has been added, and therefore it can give a greater understanding into shot composition and mise-en-scene. Outside of that however, there’s little to be added.

Love And… is a unique film. It’s only 70 minutes, and so is never boring or frustrating, but it can become rather tedious. It’s a film that perhaps has personal resonance for those making it, but viewers will need to search for their own connections. Love is certainly complicated and nonsensical at times, and sometimes only makes sense long after the fact, so I’m open to Love Again… having a greater impact further on down the line, until then it should be approached with caution and aimed solely at an art crowd.

Love And… review by Luke Ryan Baldock, November, 2015.

Love And… screened at the London Korean Film Festival 2015 as The Closing Gala film.