Eunhye Park and Youngho Kim talk about love and art in NIGHT AND DAY (photo by Eunmi Yoo)
NIGHT AND DAY (BAM GUAN NAT) (Hong Sangsoo, 2008)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
Opens Friday, October 23
212-505-5181
http://www.sddistribution.fr
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo returns to the New York Film Festival for the fifth time with NIGHT AND DAY (BAM GUAN NAT), a character-driven tale about displacement and loneliness. Youngho Kim stars as Sungam, a married painter in his forties who flees South Korea for France after having been turned in for smoking marijuana with U.S. tourists. A fish out of water in Paris, he settles into a Korean neighborhood, spending most of his time with two young art students, Yujeong (Eunhye Park) and Hyunju (Minjeong Seo). He also meets an old girlfriend, Minsun, (Youjin Kim), who is still attracted to him. And every night he calls his wife, Sungin (Sujung Hwang), wondering when he’ll be able to return home. Hong (WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN, TALE OF CINEMA) tells the story in a diary-like manner, with interstitials acting like calendar pages. Sometimes a day can be filled with talk of art, a party, and a chance encounter, while others can consist of a brief, random event with no real bearing on the plot, reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch’s STRANGER THAN PARADISE, just without the existential cynicism and dark humor. As with 2006’s WOMAN ON THE BEACH, Hong lets NIGHT AND DAY go on too long (it clocks in at 141 minutes), with too many inconsequential (even if entertaining) vignettes, but it’s so much fun watching Youngho’s compelling performance that you just might not care about the length.