Busan Hidden Gem: Lee Jong-pil’s ‘Time of Cinema’ Reminds Us Why Moviegoing Still Matters
Among the joys found when making Time of Cinema for director Lee Jong-pil was the opportunity to share the passion he has for the very simple and shared experience of just sitting in the dark and watching a movie.
“For the generation that consumes countless forms of content through various digital platforms, I wish to convey that the act of watching a film in the cinema is not merely another form of content consumption, but rather a special experience that stays with you as a memory,” explains Lee. “Ultimately, what I am trying to show is that, despite the changes of the times, the essential value of ‘going to the cinema’ never changes.”
Time of Cinema — screening at the Busan International Film Festival as part of the Korean Cinema Today section — comes in two parts: First, there is Lee’s short, Chimpanzee, which finds three people bonding after watching a film about some apes who were imported to Korea in the 1970s. They soon find themselves drawn into conversation and differing interpretations about the message that particular film has to share. There’s a familiar feeling for anyone who has listened to a friend’s interpretation of a movie and has rolled their eyes, as the trio share their feelings before, during and after the film.
It’s designed to take cinema audiences back to the experience of being caught up in a story — and questioning whether it’s based on fact or imagined — and how interpretations of that story may change with the passage of time.
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Lee says he was reminded of the films that first made an impression on him, including Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump back in 1994, and how he arrived early and found himself wondering what he was in for.
“Instead of going straight home afterward, I walked through the streets, reflecting on why the film had moved me so much,” shares Lee. “That experience made me realize that cinema is not confined to the running time of a film itself. The anticipation and waiting before the screening, and the lingering feeling once it is over — all of these moments together form the true experience of watching a film in the cinema.”
The second short — Naturally from Yoon Ga-eun — is a little more straightforward, as it trains its focus more on the pure art of making a movie itself. We follow a filmmaker and her crew as they train their cameras on a group of seven young girls, and they try to get them to, well, act like seven young girls.
It leads to some delightful and surprisingly deep discussion on the very nature of “performance.”
It’s all very meta in the best sense of the word. It’s timely, too, as the Busan Film Fest marks its 30th edition at a time when audiences are spoiled for choice when it comes to finding their content and when cinemas the whole world over battle for relevance. Both filmmakers want to remind the world what going to the cinema is all about.
Says Lee: “I don’t think of cinema as a tool for delivering a specific message. What I hope is that my films become an extraordinary playground of witnessing someone else’s life — someone seemingly unrelated to one’s own — up close, and that through such an experience audiences may discover a magical passage that allows them to look at themselves anew and rediscover who they are. With this film, I wanted to take the audience, who are usually seated in front of the screen, behind it — to the film set where the images they see are actually created. I would be glad if viewers could encounter those moments firsthand, witnessing and experiencing the different realities that unfold there.”
