Delving Down the Rabbit-Hole of Kim Min-hee
So, it is about the end of February. I had just seen ‘The Handmaiden’ a day or two prior. A movie stuck in my mind, it struck a chord with me. I couldn’t fathom the amount of great things it had done to the point where I hadn’t even noticed until a day after seeing it. Her performance amounted to many things which The New York Times had mentioned in their inclusion of Kim Min-hee in their Top 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century (So Far) that:
“She goes big and small, veers from monstrous to mousy, and alternately hides her character’s feelings and lets them run amok. Her body rocks and her face distorts as fear and pain give way to ecstasy and release. The character is a mystery that the movie teases but that Kim deliriously unlocks.” — Manohla Dargis
A big part in why I found the movie so great though is because I just simply found the face of the movie, Kim Min-Hee to be really pretty…
Tee-Hee-Hee
I wanted to rewatch her again as if it fulfilled some sort of screen crush I had for her but, after more thinking about it, I didn’t wanna rewatch through the replay of ‘The Handmaiden’ just yet. ‘The Handmaiden’ was a bit too strong and intense for me to rewatch just yet.
So, I did what I do with every performer I am fascinated with:
1.Open up Letterboxd
2. Search up the movie
3. Scroll down to the casting list
4. Click the profile
5. Go through the filmography and choose…I don’t know yet…
When I first started diving through the filmography, I had noticed that there were not really that many options for Kim Min-hee. The few movies she acted in prior to ‘The Handmaiden’ but came up short when I had realized that most of the movies she had been in were pretty much impossible to find here in the U.S. But, even if I had seen them, I probably would have been disappointed anyways because based on reviews I found of them, the reception was quite poor. critics repetitively had listed negative factors in her performance, such as being stale, superficial and flaccid. The Korean film site HanCinema once noted,
“Kim didn’t appear to have the acting skills to match her attractive appearances.” “Attractive but blank”.
So, I was restricted down only to the films she had done after ‘The Handmaiden’ which essentially meant, only her work with a small micro-indie director under the name, Hong Sang-soo.
I definitely had heard of Hong Sang-soo’s films before this instance in February. As I noticed that I had recognized the poster for ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’ from the many Letterboxd lists it appears on but something about it slid me away from starting Hong’s filmography from there as it was too important to be a first. It looked like a cheese that I must have a prerequisite of taste and experience for before I’d be able to truly be able to devour and savor. So, what I did was look on to find a more fitting option for my preconceived tastes by going for a much more simple and much more easy to see liking option. I went for the film that piqued my immediate interest through a poster, one that I now know emphasizes Hong’s preference for minimalism and simplicity through its preference of negative space in its design. The poster I’m talking about, of course, is the one for ‘The Woman Who Ran’.
With it rolling only at a swift 77 minutes and me having just enough credit left on my iTunes gift card to rent the movie for a watch that night, I knew I just had to give it a try.
The film follows the same sense of aesthetics as the poster follows. A small sense of space is done through minimal effort as it follows an almost invisible plotline. ‘The Woman Who Ran’ is slow and simple but isn’t a film that feels slow because it is simple. Not a slow burn but not a waste of time by any means. A movie that’s more concerned with how it feels rather than on how it wants you to feel, this is how it distinguishes itself as an auteur-driven film. In relative terms to films dominating the box office today, this is a movie where nothing really happens. If I were forced to state the happenings, I’d only mention it to be a film where the protagonist, Gam-hee circulates and contemplates her life as she begins interacting to and around people from her past. In short, it is a movie about people talking.
Talking about what’s happened and what’s to come, a revelation in character as Gam-hee comes in terms with what she once had. An experimental procedure of the age-old method of “show don’t tell” through dialogue. Conversations are shot in stilted camera positions, with the occasional exception of a camera zoom to elaborate on the slight emotional effects that certain lines have on her but still, most of the shots are composed as if they are paintings of the past which Gam-hee herself had longed for as it is a time that once was but also, shots last long enough to remind her of the awkwardness that made her leave in the first place. Looking back, I could see now that it was obviously influenced by the films by the French New Wave director Éric Rohmer and more specifically, ‘The Green Ray’ with its portrayal of human anguish and the nightmarish display of remaining existentially frozen in a time that never stops moving.
But when I first watched the film at the end of February, I was moved by its slowness, its lack of telling in a film full of words, and its fruition of absence. An absence which lingers on in a way through the mind which made myself feel anguish in its absence of literal telling as I begged for that fill that I was so used to receiving in cinema. These questions are what ends up making you fill in the gaps yourself. Kristen Yoonsoo Kim said it best in her article for Criterion on Kim Min-hee in ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’ when she said
“She has proven to be the kind of performer who fills in the blanks. Hong’s camera often remains stationary, and Kim’s many quiet scenes within his still frames — solitary walks, idle moments in bed — serve as windows into her characters’ textured personalities.” — Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
I praise Kim Min-hee’s performance for this very feeling, she goes through the film so bare and closed-off yet, her face feels so subtly contemplative that it begs for a wonder.
“She simply exists. Yet this existence is not blankness; it creates a contemplative mood that invites us to imagine the inner lives of her characters.” — Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
Another major thing that stuck with me was Gam-hee’s hairstyle and her clothes which soon later inspired me to get clothes in the same color set. After seeing ‘The Woman Who Ran’, my fanaticism for Kim Min-hee grew and I also had developed a taste for director Hong, this prompted me to a new ritual. At the end of each month, I must watch a new Hong Sang-soo film starring Kim Min-hee at the end of each month.
During March, I half-jokingly obsessively thought about Kim Min-hee and more specifically, how I thought she looked and also, her performance in both ‘The Handmaiden’ and ‘The Woman Who Ran’ throughout the month. I even began this running joke with myself that I stanned her and even had created this joke which revolved around me repeatedly downloading and holding hundreds of images of a still of her from ‘The Woman Who Ran’. All this is to say that I had waited patiently but really looked forward to my next end-of-the-month session. At the end of March, I went back to origin, the first film by director Hong starring Kim, ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’.
Right Now, Wrong Then’ (2015)
Before I get into ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’, I feel the need to explain some of the context that came because of it to deepen the experience. What had originally began as an innocent business relationship between director and star had deformed to a scandalous case of infidelity that burdened both of Hong’s and Kim’s lives. A case that had revealed itself to the public as Hong’s wife watched ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ and learned it to be Hong’s love letter to Kim. South Korea is a nation that stays rather traditional and proud in their beliefs and social norms, adultery, by natural account as it is most places in the world is obviously not respected. Actually, adultery was seen as such a shame it was instilled into criminal law until its removal in 2015. And with the added bonus of the hyper-fragility of stars careers based on scandals in a hyper-vigilante fan culture, the affair nearly destroyed the career of Kim Min-hee even after the crazed international success of ‘The Handmaiden’. As I’m getting into it, I’m beginning to realize that I really don’t know the situation all too well or, even think I care enough about it to get into the nitty-gritty of the gossip in its entirely but, if you yourself are interested in knowing more, I’ll link the article I looked at here. Anyways, let me get on and try to explain its relevance to the movie.
‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ plays as a re-imagining and re-structuring of ‘Groundhog’s Day’. An interpretation of time which Hong finds so vital to life. The film works in the day-in-the-life structure through a short-lived connection between an art film director, Ham Cheon-soo played by Jung Jae-young and aspiring painter Yoon Hee-jeong played by Kim. A relationship which already had started off rocky in the first place but gradually builds up to a steady bond to only tumble down through a path intertwining dishonesty from Cheon-soo which contractually builds up a burden on Hee-cheong. The day plays out as a dwindling fire, watching the chemistry burn itself concocts a slow but devastating travesty in the failure of character through connection. The day ends on a sad note in a feeling of sadness and betrayal for both characters and it plays off the regret in Cheon-soo’s breakdown at his press-screening in the morning after. But, as the story seems to dissolve, something magical seems to happen, the day from before restarts.
A precocious re-imagining of the day which played out as reality but this replay works as fantasy. The fantasy has a mixture of slight adjustments which feel so small in the moment but makes all the difference as if its plotline was developed in the same method of Monet’s impressionist paintings. Cheon-soo now, is given the ability to say the things he felt too afraid to say, did the things he wanted to do, Hee-cheong made the reactions that he so wished had happened. This is the day which Cheon-soo wanted in his head, a day full of confidence but surely enough, it still hadn’t made the fantasy true. If it wasn’t obvious enough, the film is a re-imagining of how Hong saw his relationship with Kim with Cheon-soo fulfilling his role as it was a relationship full of dour regret at the start but through expressing his desires in regret and anxiety, he gained the confidence to state his want. Making this movie in confidence was his form of expression, the same expression that goes towards writing a personal letter, a love letter.
Thus began the pairing of Hong and Kim. To make films that expressed Hong’s personal desires and regrets within a space where Kim had the freedom to interject herself in well just enough to devoid the overcontrol of the male gaze as Kim understands herself well enough inside it to show her feminist attitude towards it.
This film personally had a really big effect on me at the time and as I’m writing this, I’m starting to realize how much it made me learn about myself. See, I am a person who’s always been socially-inept. Some people who know me personally might tell you a bit of the opposite as I like to display myself as an excessively-energetic extrovert but honestly, I’m quite a naturally shy coward. Getting close to people has never been a specialty for me as I was never really one who understood others or knew how to fit in as I tend to hyper-fixate on things people don’t really care about. It’s a burden that I’ve mostly overcome but, there are obviously times where I do get flickers of reminders of my defects. My excess in pointless fantasizing and negative thinking has always made me terrified of how to know the world so, I tend to gravitate towards things that I think I’d understand best: people. There are people who I accidentally and way too easily, grow an immediate infatuation with and grow a dependency by clinging onto the connection I feel towards them. This, of course, is not a healthy way to treat people. We, as people are supposed to understand ourselves first before we go on towards others, skipping this step only leads to trouble as it leads to moments of uncomfort and puts others in a situation they’d feel trapped in. I am a person who tends to stumble as I skip this step. It led to many harmful relationships which left me in many major depressive episodes, which I felt at the time was justified because of the amount of manic episodes I felt as well in euphoric relief. I’ve made it uncomfortable for many who I’ve attempted to get close with as I noticed that their fondness for me as a friend had dwindled. So, as I watched ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’, I felt an immediate sense of sympathy towards it. Watching Cheon-soo in the first half, slowly snowballing his experience with Yoon into a deeply uncomfortable experience. His inability to own up to his faults leads to an imbalance of unhealthy dependency as he uses Cheon-soo as his only escape. I very much at the time and still deeply understand the feeling. I’m still living on and reliving that experience with new people who’ve entered my life briefly since then. What the movie had done though was make me aware of the problem, made me understand how it made others uncomfortable. A mirror reflection to gaze upon and ponder change as I looked inside myself. I’m not anything close to perfect though as I know I still have a long way to go but now, I try at least a little better to detach that unhealthy feeling of infatuation. This therapeutic realization that came through after watching ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ showed me the new magic that came from cinema. It also showed the power of love which emerged both out of Hong and Kim.
(As I was revising the essay, I had noticed that I had unnoticeably diagnosed this film and my connection to it with manic-pixie-dream-girl syndrome and wanted to state that it wasn’t my intention and apologies for disgracing the film in this way.)
Anyways, the month of April flew by and nothing worth mentioning besides that I added a new ritual. I bought a new journal at the end of the month and promised myself to write one entry for every day from then on. Technically, not the first thing I wrote in the journal, I doted down Steph Curry’s 50 point game seven against the Sacramento Kings but, what I’d prefer to state as my first “real” entry had been done later that night over my third end-of-the-month Hong/Kim watch after ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’: ‘On the Beach at Night Alone.
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017)
A movie with the same title as the Walt Whitman poem, ‘On The Beach at Night Alone’ is the career defining work of both Kim and Hong which had ruminated on the coming controversy about the affair between Kim and Hong. The first half came with a few bits of distinctly surreal moments and also, some gorgeous shots of Kim’s character Young-hee laying on the beach at night alone which I had for a couple of months, displaying as my laptop screen wallpaper for a couple of months of the year. I sadly switched out the wallpaper due to embarrassment of how I had assumed it must’ve looked out-of-context but, I still have a still of Young-hee as my iCloud profile picture etched in temporary forever-ness. Also, before I carry on, I must mention that the line of events which I’m describing the order of the film to is most likely wrong in this essay as I hadn’t seen it in a couple of months but for the nature of essay I want to do, I don’t think it matters all that much because I am much more focused on remembering instinctively how it made me feel at the time. I decided this basis of remembrance on these descriptions on what I remember or, seem to think about what I remembered. Before I get into the process of how it made me feel, I feel the need to explain the process of how Hong comes to make his films. Hong, who was already in his veteran of his career, had developed a unique style to his work which was akin to the French New Wave masters such as Jean-luc Godard and his primal influence, Eric Rohmer. In a style which Hong likes to refer to as “independent” as it was a style he developed during his course at the institute of Chicago, he swiftly goes through making the films not knowing what they’re truly about until the mornings of. Mornings in which he finally decides the narrative for the day. A type of style which has about perfect kineticism and unison to rawness. Hong prefers the rawness of ideas rather than the over-steamed process of others. This process is why his films end up feeling so deeply personal to him as the forming expression which comes out flows out the most instantaneous and reactive part of his subconsciousness. Barely out the roots of the mind. A methodology which is slightly noticeable in ’Right Now, Wrong Then’ but is painfully noticeable in Hong’s Freudian slip in ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’.
With it coming out as a response to the mass-exposure of the affair, the movie had naturally come out a lot more aggressive in its approach of the tone. Kim Min-hee had received a character who’s more centrally-focused here than in ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ so naturally, she got to display more of her acting talents and specialties. One feature that I’ve been noticing mostly between the actresses that stick in my mind the most are ones who are the best at displaying such contradictory expressions in such a small manner. I first began noticing my appreciation for it through Jun Jong-seo’s Hae-mi in 2018’s ‘Burning’ and Jeon Do-yeon in ‘Secret Sunshine’, with its originating popularity started by the master, Setsuko Hara in the films of Ozu, is a type of multi-faceted acting which requires many layers of contradictory expression and inputs within the front and background of the face which creates a daunting and quite traumatic feel of importance. Kim Min-hee does this but, in a new specialty to grow a new fondness for this type of performance. It’s a specialty which I don’t even think Kim herself tried so hard to do, it just came naturally. What I mean by this is really more because of the way tone of voice and facial structure is brought up and referenced by its presence. Kim’s face is one donned with high cheekbones which, along with the timidly soft voice she has, has created a subconsciousness attachment to the idea that she is a character of gleeful innocence and childful wonder. These features are what the movie makes apparent on what attracts people to this type of character, a Woman who seems so graceful and elegant on the outside but, this builds a stage of turmoil within the character Young-hee because of it. It’s a showfront that wasn’t intended, which falsely led characters on a trail of what had been assumed to be, charm. Young-hee feels disconnected between others, thinking they know who Young-hee is and what she herself sees herself as.. ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’ is a movie that slowly devolves into frustration that comes from that disconnect. A madness that came from the matter of miscommunication as it stays uncovered. An anger which requires a form of rawness to truly communicate best with, one that acts before thinking, works without confrontal doubt that comes with the stage of over-doing a pre-production stage and, from a rushed atmosphere that demands a quick shooting of the story. An anger from the style of swift filmmaking which Hong had come up with for his independent style of storytelling. This “independent” style is what makes Hong’s films feel so unique in its run through cinema, it is the thing connecting us to the medium itself.
Young-hee’s slow reveal of pent-up anger brought a lot out of Kim which led me to be able to reflect on how I personally affect others. As I’m continuing to write this essay, I’m beginning to curl up into a ball and cry in shame so, I’ll store the opportunity of writing this for a later time where I can bear it.
