The Day after

L’Illusion perdue

Last year Hong Sang-soo signed four films.

“The Day after” is his latest and was competing at Cannes last may.

But it is mainly a piece of perfection
out of the blue sky of the cinema.

Its grace, when it looks natural, is mysterious.
Accorded to the rhythmic breath of the director.

Hong Sang-soo films as he breaths.

He scratches, he purrs. He is a cat.

His favorite game is to film the evidence.

And immediately after he retires it from our eyes, laughing.

See? You were seduced by this image and you haven’t even seen how fake it was.

And at this point I have already said too much about this Korean director.

It is more than simple to tell Hong Sang-soo’s stories.

There is a main character,
a coward and a proud man.
A critic and a publisher.

He is married,
but he has a romance with the girl who works for him.

We might believe that the film is built by flash-backs.

But it can only mean we have not understood well.

We thought seeing in the job interview scene the birth of love.

But it is both simpler and craftier than that.

Simpler, as this film is not only about the past.

It could even be about the present.

Craftier, as this film is also built
with many pieces of memory.

The director explores the wounds of the past
and the prohibitions.

There are days
when the past
abruptly becomes the present.

These are days
when we suffocate
with our mouth open.

This is a film built as a treasure hunt.

But also an incredibly literal and simple film.

A chronicle of memory
and withholding.

It speaks about the few fragments left alive
from a defeated love story.

It mixes also soft observations
on a relationship that hesitates to take a form.

But never forget that Hong Sang–soo
 is always fooling us.

Behind this thick black and white,
as those of Jean Eustache,

behind this compact air that circulates
between the beings,
like in the late Nouvelle Vague,

his directing

has  one adultery

in advance

on the world.

G G D