Word: kwon
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...brilliant film: it manages to be both epic and intimate in equal measure. By viewing it, I not only gained a working knowledge of the historical forces that gave rise to the modern, partitioned Korean state, but I also received tremendous insight into a uniquely creative and troubled mind. Kwon-taek’s Seung-up is not only a compelling figure unto himself, but a portal through which to see and understand modern Korean history...
...only the HFA’s event organizers had been as deft as Kwon-taek’s film in balancing the inspirational and educational components of the screenings...
...theatre was filled to capacity the night of Chihwaseon’s screening, and the audience included a sizeable contingent of Korean-speaking patrons. This linguistic divide proved a tad discomforting during the question-and-answer session that followed the movie: Kwon-taek’s replies were often witty and poignant, but his translator (Professor Kyung Hyun Kim of the University of California Irvine) struggled to keep pace with the director. Often, by the time the English-speaking audience had received its version of the directors comments, the Korean-speaking filmgoers were already in stitches or gasping with delight...
...HFA’s greater failing, however, was its lack of contextualizing materials for the filmgoer new to Kwon-taek’s oeuvre, or Korean cinema and culture in general. A brief essay on the politics and culture of late 19th-century Korea would have gone a long way towards improving the viewing experience...
...Kwon-taek acknowledged the awkward disconnect between his work and much of the audience: “If you are a first time viewer [of my films] it is not strange to perceive them as strange or unfamiliar. But I have tried to provide points of access for you into them.” And indeed he did: the characters that populate his films, in spite of their inhabitation of a distant continent during a remote century, are comprehensible, relatable, and accessible. The HFA should strive to makes its screenings the same...