RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN

Korea, 2015, 121 minutes, Colour.
Jae-yeong Jeong, Min-hee Kim.
Directed by Sang- soo Hong.

There have been a number of films which have told the same story twice: Divorce His, Divorce Hers, Sliding Doors – and the three films of The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Him, Her, Them.

This Korean film tells the same story twice.

A film director travels to a city for a screening and a Q&A session. He arrives early, encounters a young woman who is a painter, becomes interested in her, talking with her, having coffee with her, listening to her story, telling his own. He falls in love with her. He has a screening but the Q&A is not successful as the chair focuses on himself and the film director walks out.

The film has the title a second time in the middle of the film and then repeats the story with more subtle variations, in the treatment of the characters, in the details of their encounter, more subtleties in the presentation of the painter.

The film moves at a very measured pace, giving the audience time to contemplate the characters, their emotions, the moral situations.

The film director himself has a strong reputation – although, in the early 21st century he made a film with a rather challenging title, especially for female audiences, Woman is the Future of Man.

This film won the main prize at the 2015 Locarno Festival and also won an Ecumenical Award.