I’m honestly puzzled as to who this film appealed to. It’s dull, pointless, unmemorable, and felt at 92 minutes like it might take all night. Worse still, The Day After feels like a film school project, the kind of project one might submit who hasn’t yet learned, I dunno, storyboarding, scriptwriting, or editing. I can see you’ve set up the camera properly and at times it’s certainly aimed at the person speaking, but that also describes literally millions of videos uploaded on YouTube. Tell me, what is there in this picture that’s worth my attention?
The Day After has nothing to do with a significant event and is perhaps titled such because it describes an aftermath, albeit a very small scale one. This picture is little more than a series of very long conversations between stationary people. I’d have no problem accepting this was an adapted play, but things tend to happen in plays. Almost nothing happens in this film.
The lone worthwhile conversation in the film comes at the beginning; you can almost set a clock by when The Day After becomes The Conversations After. Over dinner, Song Haejoo (Yunhee Cho) quizzes her husband, celebrated literary critic Kim Bong-won (Kwon Hae-hyo), about what he’s been up to. Bong-won ain’t sayin’ much, but Haejoo puts the pieces together and correctly reasons Bong has been hitting on other women. This is quite the dynamic, huh? Is there another woman? Who is she? How are these two going to play it? Then the egg timer buzzes and this film stops being clever … now!
Uh oh, I’ve gone and given away the whole film. In my defense, I think I’m allowed to describe the first three minutes of any movie with immunity.
The entire rest of the film is conversations between Bong-won and his mistress, his new hire (who I’m sure Bong hopes will be a mistress, too), and his wife. The conversations are long, fairly shallow, and usually involve an entire meal eaten start to finish. Occasionally something almost happens, like when the wife accuses the new hire of being the mistress. This leads to a cat fight that wouldn’t injure a kitten. Past that, you’re on your own. The conversations
are endless, but lead nowhere. I’m sure there might be something redeeming among the four unhappy characters if any of them could keep me awake. This was just one flat-out dull film, a celebration of ennui and conversational lack-of-gambit.
Shot in black and white for a reason only known to the director and cinematographer (whom I suspect are one and the same). Holy crap, Hong Sang-soo is a notable director? You’re kidding, right? Obviously, I could stand to know more about South Korean cinema, but that fact strikes me as completely wrong. Nothing about this film said, “professional.” Perhaps if I see another Sang-soo film, I can appreciate better his skill. For now, I wish there were a morning after pill to abort the last traces of The Day After from my memory.
Bong-won is something of a heel
Always searching for the better fem deal
It’s out of my league
This super intrigue
I’m so taken I just might zzzzzzzzz
Not Rated, 92 Minutes
Director: Sang-soo Hong
Writer: Sang-soo Hong
Genre: Film school project, at best
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Sang-soo Hong’s mom, oh, and the people at Cannes for who-knows-what reason
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anyone having to endure this
