May 24, 2017

Hey guys, @FilmAndWhisky and myself have decided to try another film club where we watch a movie weekly in order to introduce new movies and discussion around here. We will announce a film each week and anyone who wants to participate can watch it at any time during the week and come in here to share their thoughts.

Week 18: Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)



Week 17: The Village (M. Night Shyamalan)



Week 16: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes)



Week 15: The Ten (David Wain)



Week 14: Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)



Week 13: Bad Lieutenant (Abel Ferrara)



Week 12: Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet)



Week 11: Zvenigora (Aleksander Dovzhenko)



Week 10: O Pagador de Promessas (Anselmo Duarte)



Week 9: Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola)



Week 8: Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondō)



Week 7: Temptress Moon (Chen Kaige)



Week 6: Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sica)



Week 5: Pakeezah (Kamal Amrohi)



Week 4: Mundane History (Anocha Suwichakornpong)



Week 3: Swan Lake: The Zone (Yuri Ilyenko)



Week 2: Life and Nothing More & Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami)



Week 1: Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo)



Enjoy!

@Twan @Charlie Work @Pinhead

 

May 24, 2017

This isn't available for streaming anywhere so here are some links: Public Torrent / GoogleDrive

 

May 24, 2017

Much appreciated!!

You can be in charge of letting people know how they can watch the films if you'd like haha.

 

May 24, 2017

So is the movie any good or ami wasting my time

 

May 24, 2017

You're wasting op's time because you clearly didn't understand the concept of this thread lol

It's up to you to find out if you like it or not and share the thoughts with us.

 

May 24, 2017

Uhhh okey so so Sorryyy op

 

May 25, 2017

So this was my first watch of Woman on the Beach as it's one of the last few Hong films I still needed to catch up on. All in all, this was another great, confident entry in his filmography. What surprised me about this one was how much insight we had into the female characters' psyche, with what might be the only drinking sequence shared by only two women in any of his films. Hong is always very critical of his male protagonists in presenting them as selfish, manipulative cheats but here he hardly sympathizes with his male character at all, which I thought was cool. The more I explore his work, the more I realize that the claims that he makes the same movie over and over are pretty off base; it's true that he has an aesthetic that is easily recognizable throughout all of his films but he almost always takes different stances when it comes to the morals of his characters, they're nuanced changes but they always lead to new profound realizations about human nature. I'd probably consider this film a lesser work for Hong which is nothing but a testament to how strong his output has been since overall this is a great, resonating film that I can definitely see sticking with me over time.

Looking forward to your guys' thoughts if anyone takes the time to check this out this week and we'll announce the choice for next week this weekend

 

May 26, 2017

I haven't had much time to come in here and unpack the film, so I'll continue this over the weekend. But here are some initial thoughts...

The story is really nicely laid out with a straightforward plot but a lot of character depth. More than even Hong's formal tropes, such as his signature zooms and music, his scholarly interests and self-reflective tendencies always stand out to me. His films always have reference to major literary and philosophical persons or concepts and my favourite scene of Woman is when The Director explains how a projected image may usurp one's reality and alter their perception--i.e. he sees his chick with a d-ck inside her all porno style and fixates on this till he suffers. Hong has a way of presenting philosophical insights with grace and simplicity. That said, to me he is less of an artist than he is a critic. His interest is not in expressing the ineffable through art but of unraveling art and making it effable (speakable). He has seen some s--- and wants to tell us about it. And that's what's beautiful about his films, including this. He is telling us a story from a genuine place. And its not some dramatic fictionalized story; it's just something meaningful to him and due to his naked sincerity it becomes meaningful to us as well, even if mundane.

More to come...

Also that dog was cute and I almost cried to see her get abandoned

 

May 26, 2017

@FilmAndWhisky interesting point about Hong being less of an artist as much as he is a critic and one that I'd have to disagree with. What is art if not a representation of life? I think his films are often seen as pure displays of reality as his aesthetic is mostly bare-bones and straightforward compared to other auteurs of our time but I'd argue that he is less interested in displaying reality than he is in projecting said reality through his carefully constructed structures. When looking at it like this, I think it's clear that his artistic hand is on full display in his work. When I think of critics, I think of someone who is precise in making points about a topic so the reader can gain a better understanding of it. I think what Hong does is precisely the opposite in that he doesn't ever make any points about his characters or themes that fill his films, he simply opens up questions that the viewer then has to search within themselves to find answers to. Like you said, he's seen stuff and he wants to show it to us, but he does so in such a non intrusive way that it really puts more pressure on the viewer to dig deeper into it in order to gain any sort of satisfaction as on the surface his films can feel fairly light fare. To me, this is the essence of art.

 

May 27, 2017

okay, he's both

 

May 27, 2017

I just saw this thread! How long do we have to watch this cuz I 100% will tomorrow

 

May 28, 2017

That should be fine! Post about it when you do.

I'll be announcing the new selection for this upcoming week but feel free to continue discussion about this one.

 

May 28, 2017

I'll go ahead and announce the choice for week 2, but feel free to still catch up on week 1 if you wish.

We're gonna do a special double feature edition since I feel that these two films build well upon each other, but it's not necessary to watch both if you can't find the time in a week.

Abbas Kiarostami's Life and Nothing More & Through the Olive Trees



"Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." - Jean-Luc Godard

R.I.P. cinema, long live King Abbas.

@FilmAndWhisky @Twan @Charlie Work @Pinhead @coil @Radeem @RobTheDude @King V
@Old_Parr

 

May 28, 2017

Great, great film.

Tbf my favorite movies usually have no interest in reality and when they do they still go about conveying that reality in very surreal ways, negating the realist qualities all together. Right Now, Wrong Then and now Woman on the Beach are entirely realist films to me, almost bordering on docu-drama until we go from neutral observer to censorious critics once Soo's characters start revealing themselves.

You're right about the male lead, but I think he was very sympathetic towards the other males in the film. The dude with the glasses was insufferably naive towards how to convey his attraction, cowering multiple times when Mun-suk would call him out on it. The two passerby's who help her out with her vehicle were also visibly nervous when she was trying to converse with them, one having to rush his friend along to get out of the situation quicker. I'm not prepared to make any sweeping generalizations about what Soo was trying to say about attraction from the female side, though it came off to me like dishonesty - from a place of conceit or anxiety - is what keeps men and women apart. With friends, partners, associates, nobody seems to want to talk about the elephant in the room and address their feelings towards each other head on, spurring other insecurities whenever that person isn't directly under their control or supervision.

 

May 29, 2017

I'd like to join in if you all don't mind. I need an excuse to watch these two films because they've been sitting on my computer for about a year. I have seen the first film of the "Koker Trilogy" and now seems like a great time to finish it up.

 

May 29, 2017

This is the first movie I've seen from Hong Sang-soo. I know of him cuz the local film fest gets a movie of his every year and I always say I'm gonna check it out but don't for some reason. But i definitely will now. Loved loved loved the camera work. The zooms and the patience with the camera. Letting the scenes breathe help in movies like this. Wasn't expecting to get laughs out of it either and definitely did although the laughs weren't prominent throughout the movie. I dunno it's like a competently made mumblecore movie (thematically and visually[not that there isn't those within mumblecore as a genre]) to me. Was trying to see if there was any similarities to the Renoir film of the same name but i couldn't really see any.

 

May 29, 2017

d--- we got some real heads in here.

Bless you @coil & @Moon Age

 

Jun 1, 2017

https://letterboxd.com/razvahn/film/life-and-nothing-more/1/

This cinema transcends words for me, pure life.

Going to do Through the Olive Trees another day this week.

 

Jun 2, 2017

Watched Through the Olive Trees first by accident, so I will do the other sometime this weekend. I'm gonna write up a little something for Olive Trees tomorrow but just wanted to pop in and say this film floored me. Kiarostami is a real one.

 

Jun 4, 2017

Through the Olive Trees