French reviews of April Snow
From French school of Journalism by Jean-Marie BENOISThttp://www.efj.fr/article.php3?id_article=212
translated from french to english by camille
camille : I’m very happy that April Snow got good reviews from the students of the French school of journalism.
The birth of an improbable love and, in a way, forbidden : the topic of April Snow is not new in the cinema. But the new Jin-Ho Hur movie, in spite of some lengths, imposes its delicacy of treatment and tone, helped by luminous actors. Has just learned that his wife had a car accident, In-Su (Bae Yong-Joon) goes to the East coast of South Korea. At the hospital, he meets Seo-Young (Son Ye-Jin), who reveals to be the wife of a man who was also in the car. Looking through their stuffs, they will realize that their respective spouses had an affair.
Joined together at the same and far place, the same hotel, and especially connected by the feeling that they’ve been betrayed, In-su and Seo-Young gradually will get to know each other. From meetings in empty and impersonal halls of the hospital, to hotel corridor, an affection will be born, then a love, which the waking up from coma of In-su’s wife will complicate. On similar plot we could fear a soppy romance with produces regularly the Korean cinema. But April Snow avoids all the pitfalls to evoke, with lightness, the suffering and the awakening of two persons.
Not any important moral discussions : the movie focuses on glances, sketched gestures, on exchanges of short and almost innocent comments but which in fact reveal much more about the feelings of the two protagonists. It is here that all the quality of the interpreters are important. Fragile, and densely human, they give importance to the most harmless attitude by their subtle acting. So, in spite of a slow rhythm (more sensitive in the second part of the movie, after the waking up of the wife), April Snow fascinates. It describes to perfection the flow and ebb of the pain, the loneliness, and the groping cure which accompanies them, evolution criss-cross here with those which leads from the feeling of revenge and betrayal to the acceptance of the two lovers’s relationship, the old and the new ones. A small jewel of delicacy.
For those who take an interest on the renewal of the Korean romantic cinema, locally called hallyu (official Korean website about the subject, but in English), you can watch the movie which has started it : My Sassy Girl, of Kwak Jae-Young. But it is a romantic comedy, not a "suspended" movie, like April Snow or Locataires (whom I had already recommended, but any occasion is good...)
From : http://www.benzinemag.net/cinema/Aprilsnow.htm
by Patrick Braganti
translated from french to english by camille
We can bet that people who loved “Locataires” last year will have the same pleasure to watch April snow now, whose common points with Kim ki-duk’s movie are not limited to the staging of a love story.
In-su, 31 years old, lighting director on concerts, and Seo-Young, 27 years old and housewife, meet at the bedside of their respective spouses, responsible for a tragic car accident. By getting back their stuffs and listening to their cell phones’s messages, In-su and Seo-Young discover the love affair of the two victims. Shaken by the revelation, torn between love and anger, they come gradually to share their sorrows. As “Locataires”, the expression of inner and even outer feelings go through very few dialogues. Here, the language is from the body, initially curled up and in tears by the knowledge of the affair, then opening to each other by helping embraces than deliberately carnal. The bringing together of the two rejected persons has already taken the form of a punishment imposed to the two hospitalized people, before becoming more serious until the cruel dilemma for the future of this strange relationship at the possible end of coma of these two. In-su and Seo-Young have therefore all the time to go through a whole pallet of feelings, but concerning also their marriage state. Will they be able to continue to live as before, how to live with this betrayal ? A situation almost incredible, source of traumas and tears however treated with delicacy and tenderness. April snow is dived in a soft and silky light, till making friendly the hospital and punctuated by a melancholic piano melody.
Because they are young and beautiful, unfortunate victims, we empathize very much with what arrives to In-su and Seo-Young, rejecting into the position of traitor and unfair the adulterous couple, without knowing anything about the nature, the force, even the legitimacy of the other affair. By putting in parallel an extra-marital affair and a "love in progress" outlaw itself by ricochet, Hur Jin-Ho questions the difference between affair and love story. He isn’t sure at all that there is some, the first reserved for other people, therefore depreciated or ridiculed, the second for ourselves, therefore magnified and transcended.
So this love story is beautiful, but perhaps not very moral. In this circumstance, it becomes possible because the preceding one, hidden and revealing an adultery, has existed. For In-su, the life falls and opens a door which he did not even suspect the existence. For Seo-Young married by arrangement, the meeting with In-su has something stimulating and wakes up feelings which she would probably never feel with so much intensity.
Hur Jin-Ho has really his place in the Hallyu, the new Korean wave movie film directors who know at the same time the honours of important international festivals and the reward of public success, as well in Asia as the rest of the world. April snow seduces by its elegance and its reserve, its poetry to which late and spring snow is undoubtedly not stranger, and especially the interpretation of its actors. After some thoughts and to summarize, April snow is the development and the happy conclusion of In the mood for love. That’s all what I want to say.
To be continued
posted by Toujours_BYJ @ 5/07/2006 03:19:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Frances, I almost finish all the translations, thanks to our french holidays on May. I will post them all to share.
About Duelist, I just search on Allocine for you, the movie will be released on May 17th, as it's an epic drama, hope it will have more great French reviews than Wu Ji the Promise of Chen Kaige which is one of the Asian movie which has the worst reviews I ever saw here.
Yes, I like Farewell my concubile very much, if I remember, this movie has won something at Cannes festival.
I didn't watch Wu Ji but I have a friend who told me she felt asleep when watching this movie. If you've read some reviews of french media about this movie, of my god, I never see that ! I'm very glad that Yong Joon didn't play in this movie because even the actors had very bad reviews by them.
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