The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (Daijiga umule pajinnal)

 

Release Year: 1996

Director: Hong Sangsoo

Review: "What did I just watch?".  Those were my thoughts immediately after watching Hong Sangsoo's debut feature film.  The film follows the lives of four different people. A struggling writer, the woman he is in love with, her salesman husband and the writer's young girlfriend.  Its a bitter love triangle and one that offers no pleasure for anyone involved.

This is a very challenging film to watch.  Hong uses a very disorienting method of telling the story, focusing on one character at a time, in sequence.  This is a directing style in which it is almost impossible to gain any sort of orientation.  It wasn't until the movie was nearly over that I had any idea what was going on, or even a basic understanding of the plot.  I had no connection with any of the characters, and kept wondering why the protagonist kept changing.  I was never sure if I was supposed to care about a character, or if they were simply a throwaway.

Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated after the film ended.  I felt cheated.  I know how high this film was praised by Korean critics, and I got absolutely nothing out of it.  I had no idea what exactly I had just watched.  Determined, I immediately started watching it again.  This time around, having gotten to know all the characters and had some reference points, things started falling into place and I could appreciate that there was actually a story unfolding.  They just unwind in such a bizarre manner it wasn't possible to put anything together on the first viewing.  I can't see how this was a wise directing choice for Hong.  There is no excuse for making a film that needs to be watched twice just to understand it.

Perhaps I could have forgiven the odd story structure if the movie was enjoyable from moment to moment.  It wasn't.  Partially at fault is the horrendous English subtitle translation, but more than that it was the entirely ugly film making that makes this an oppressively dull, uncomfortable film.  There are shots that are absolutely inconsequential.  Even after the second viewing, they had nothing at all to do with anything in the movie, and were in no way interesting.  It baffles me why they were included.  It would have been excusable if this was only a couple scenes, but it seemed it was more like every other scene.  On top of this, the movie was just completely plain visually.  There were no shots which were visually interesting, and the cinematography made me want to take a nap.

Now, after viewing it a second time I did get something out of the story.  There was some interesting character analysis, particularly the young girl who was in love with the writer despite how bad he treated her. I was actually getting pretty engaged, by the complicated love mess, only to be disappointed with a disjointed ending. I wish this story wasn't clouded by the clunky, chaotic directing style of Hong.  If you watch this film, you must watch it twice, and I really can't say its worth it even if you do.

 Rating: 2/5