Kim Tae-woo is outstanding as annoying, self-obsessed auteur in Hong Sangsoo’s LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL

LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL (JAL ALJIDO MOT HAMYEONSUH) (Hong Sangsoo, 2009)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
March 2, 3:45 & 9:00; March 3, 6:00
Series runs through March 4, $12 per screening, All Access Pass $129
212-875-6500
www.filmlinc.com
www.blog.naver.com

South Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo’s latest film about a South Korean auteur, LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL, is another intriguing examination of art and sex in contemporary society, following NIGHT AND DAY (2008), WOMAN ON THE BEACH (2006), TALE OF CINEMA (2005), and WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN (2004). Hong, who has served as a juror at several film festivals and whose work has screened at fests all over the world, sets his latest self-reflexive story at the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival, where director Ku will be part of the jury. But it turns out that Ku is a self-absorbed, insensitive, and subtly obnoxious filmmaker who cares only about himself, walking away from fans and colleagues in the middle of a conversation or in the midst of signing an autograph, interested only in listening to people praise his own talent, which has been relegated to art-house films that few people see and even fewer understand. After leaving the festival to teach a class at a school on Jeju Island, he visits with a famous painter and former mentor who has unknowingly married Ku’s first love, setting the stage for the creepy Ku to perform yet more selfish acts. Kim Tae-woo is outstanding in the lead role, playing the self-obsessed director with an unerring casualness that makes him more absurdly ridiculous than conniving and mean-spirited. With a little bit of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 here, Woody Allen’s STARDUST MEMORIES there, Hong once again reveals the soft underbelly of ego within the film industry, but he also needs to edit himself more, as the bittersweet, slyly ironic LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL, made for a mere $100,000, is his latest film to clock in at more than two hours.

Matt Damon stars in closing-night film, Paul Greengrass’s GREEN ZONE

LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL is screening as part of Film Comment Selects, the cinephile magazine’s tenth annual examination of international works that have been overlooked, have not yet received distribution, or deserve to be rediscovered. The series, held at the Walter Reade Theater, runs through March 4 and includes such films as Elia Suleiman’s THE TIME THAT REMAINS, Edward Yang’s A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s AIR DOLL, a four-film focus on Philippe Grandrieux, Carl Foreman’s THE VICTORS, and a special screening of THE AVIATOR’S WIFE in honor of the late Eric Rohmer.