Interview of dir Hur Jin-Ho at Deauville Asian Festival !
This interview was given by dir Hur at Deauville Asian movies festival on March 2006. I’ve translated it but forgot to post untill I saw Youngsun’s translation on KOB.Thanks Youngsun for reminding me.
Interview of Hur Jin-Ho by Mathilde LORIT
From http://www.excessif.com/news.php?14732
Translated from French to English by camille
Sitting on a bar of Normandy hotel in Deauville, Hur Jin-Ho gives his interviews successively with natural. France is a country he knows kinda well, between his tourist trips and invitations from festivals : He has a great memory of his arrival at Cannes festival in 1998 (for Christmas in August, presented at the Week of criticism section), the year of the release of the movie Sitcom of François Ozon, which he found "very funny". He comes back this time for April Snow, true sudden impulse of an April month, presented at the 8th festival of the Asian cinema of Deauville.
Q : You had already referred to the beginning and the end of a love story, why choose adultery today?
A : Initially I wanted to study the unexpected meeting of two people who should never know each other. And at the writing of the scenario, I was guided by this idea that adultery generates betrayal, which itself causes anger and hatred. What interested me was the way to go beyond these negative feelings to lead to forgiveness. Can someone do it, and how?
Q : So, you succeed in showing all the facets of adultery : the pain of the misled spouses but also a true love story which brings them together on their turn...
A : This contrast was required : we always said that adultery is disgusting, but when the misled spouses live on their turn a beautiful love story, their adultery is not sordid any more. It is also the illustration of an expression in Korea which says: "when it’s people’s affair, it’s an adultery, but if I am concerned, it’s a romance"!
Q : Did you choose this subject by thinking of the crisis that many married couples in Korea go through today?
R : No, even if it is true that Korea knows a very strong rate of divorces. I didn’t want to deal with society problem, I rather chose a topic which touched me personally and a problem which seemed to me universal and human : how to go beyond betrayal to find forgiveness?
Q : How did you work with your actors? Was there a real place left for improvisation?
R : There were not many repetitions, I left them free even if we had discussed together many times about the various reactions of the characters. The scene where they drink alcohol is impromptu : I had just set up the context by saying to them that they would be in a bar and they should tell personal things. As they really drank for the scene, and Ye-Jin is not used to drink alcohol, she can’t almost play any more at the last shots ! But it was a good occasion to show how people who are used to hold their feelings can release them by alcohol...
Q : You privilege one more time silences and the long fixed plans...
R : I believe that when there are few dialogues, feeling is stronger : certain things really cannot be said... And about the fixed plans, it is a way for me to accentuate very speaking small details. Why does the camera move without showing anything?
Q : Your film was a significant success in Japan, and more, largely we note a real cultural relationship between Japan and Korea. How do you explain it?
R : I am not sure that we can speak about a particular proximity between the two countries, I rather believe that I collect the fruits of a real continuity in the presentation of my movies in Japan : my two first feature films had been distributed over there and we had 40% of Japanese investments in my second movie’s financing. To be honest, the principal reason of April Snow success in Japan is due mainly to the extraordinary popularity of Bae Yong-Joon there (thanks to the drama Winter Sonata).
Q : In France, We consider you as a director of art movie, and in Korea?
A : The number of tickets of my feature films is right between the results of Art movies and more commercial movies. But if you compare me with Park Chan-wook for example, I am much less commercial than him!!
Q : Do you have the feeling to belong to a "New Korean Wave"?
A : It is true that at the end of the Nineties, a new generation of directors appeared. I belong to it as well as Kim Jee-won or Im Sang-soo, but I don’t know if we’ve brought something as revealing as the film directors of the New Wave in France. Simply, we have each one our own style and at the same time a certain common approach of things which drew the public attention. And the Korean spectators, while going to watch "local" movies, contributed to this beautiful energy.
Q : What about the "quotas crisis" in Korea?
A : Under the American pressure, and with the free exchange agreements, the Korean government agreed to drop from 146 to 73 the number of days dedicated to Korean films in the theatres. All the film directors are obviously very angry and we manifest regularly to defend the cultural diversity. We don’t ask in any case that people will see only Korean films but we fight so that the cinema is not compared to consumer goods, and to prevent the collapse of the Korean cinema.
Q : What are your projects?
A : I work on a new movie, whose temporary title is Happiness. In fact, it is a movie which I wanted to shoot before April Snow, the scenario is thus completed and the shooting should begin on August. It's about the story of a man and a woman who get to know each other in a center for handicapped and who fall in love with each other.
Q : A little like Oasis, of Lee Chang-dong?
A : I think that it will be more romantic and crueller than Oasis....
A big thanks to KIM Yejin, our dear interpreter!!
posted by Toujours_BYJ @ 10/28/2006 09:00:00 AM
3 Comments:
Bonjour Chère Camille,
Bonne nouvelle ! J'ai "retrouvé" votre blog en essayant avec l'ordi à la maison.
Cette entrevue est très révélatrice des intentions du réalisateur. Ah, comme j'aurais aimé être présente l'an dernier quand il est venu au Toronto International Film Festival ! Une consolation est que les questions ne viennent pas nécessairement tout de suite après avoir vu un film pour la première fois. Et puis, il y aurait sûrement eu la gêne de poser une question en public.
Ce que je me demande maintenant est lequel entre AS ou AS DC réussit le mieux à nous ammener la vision d'Hur Jin-ho pour cette histoire. Pour le moment, je penche en faveur d'AS DC.
"Entre nous ... c'est toujours..." : quelle belle chanson une fois encore! Ah, la belle guitare espagnole à la fin... Merci.
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Chère Gosijo
Je suis très contente que vous puissiez accéder à mon blog de nouveau.
C'est vraiment dommage que vous n'aviez pas vu AS et rencontré le metteur en scène Hur l'année dernière au festival de Toronto. Cependant concernant sa vision, je me penche par contre plutôt en faveur de la version originale.
Ps : c'est la chanson "entre nous" de la chanteuse Chimène Baldi.
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