Angemaeul
Korea,
1983, 90 min
Shown in 1985
CREDITS
- dir
-
Im Kwon-Taek
- scr
-
Song Kil-han
The perfect shape for photographing a snake or a letter box for dead letters—all those jokes about Cinemascope are dashed to smithereens by the astonishing wide-screen imagery of Im Kwon-taek, previously known in the West for Mandala. But the striking juxtapositions of figures, interiors and landscapes are far from merely ornamental. Im’s subject is the strangeness of life in an isolated, close-knit village and the audience needs to be taken off guard just as much as the heroine—a teacher beginning her first post, far from friends, fiancé and urban comforts. Im draws on every cinematic tool (camera angle, movement, editing, music) to convey the young woman’s predicament. The emotional effect varies from the frankly provocative (the extended scene of sexual assault in a water mill) to the supremely delicate (the girl’s forlorn wait at the railway station). This is expressive filmmaking par excellence, and puts most Western cinema to shame.
—Geoff Brown, London Film Festival
FACTOID #56
A group of renegade filmmakers who dubbed themselves Grand Central Station staged a publicity stunt on the Opening Night of the 13 th San Francisco International Film Festival by bombarding the steps of the Masonic Auditorium with 300 cream pies. Lemon meringue, anyone?
