When I received the offer of “Programmer of the Year” from the JEONJU IFF, I thought a lot about what criteria I should take on to program this section. Then, I simply thought, "Let’s make a program with movies that have influenced the genre movies that I’m most interested in these days!" For that reason, the three movies I chose are those in the genre I´m most interested in these days, and also those I´ve missed the chance to see in theaters. The desire to see the movies I think about most at the theater is also included in this program.
The first movie selected in this way was David Lynch´s Blue Velvet (1986). When I first got interested in cinema, Lynch´s movies were always at the top of my must-see list. Among them, Blue Velvet is a movie made with relatively popular film grammar and shows Lynch´s own personality. It has the power to constantly stimulate and confuse the audience, both visually and aurally.
The second movie of my choice is Cure, directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi. This film has the power to face the daunting task of portraying unknown hatred and anxiety. The disposition of tight and brutal shots repeatedly inserted briefly in the concise, neat, and static mise-en-scène plunges the audience into endless anxiety. The ending is also ambiguous and unclear, which further doubles the ominous atmosphere of this movie. It was a new style of the film even for the era it was released in, but it has a novelty that you are not used to at all even when watching now.
My third choice is Missing directed by Katayama Shinzo. It is a movie worth watching together with the previous two films because it shares a greater context. And while it is a thriller genre, it shares the sentiment of “anxiety” like the previous two movies. In a sense, Missing has the same blood running through its veins as the other two films. This film is also quite new, as it was released in Japan this year and is currently playing in theaters.
By watching these three films together, I hope that it will be a time for the audience to enjoy the charm of genre films that transcend time and the history of the film genre at once. In addition, The King of Pigs, my first feature and debut film, and Train to Busan, my first live-action film, will be screened together in the program. I am so excited to feel like I can go back to the days when I was a selfless moviegoer and chatted endlessly after watching a movie on the big screen with my friend who is another movie fanatic.
Written by Director YEON Sang-ho (J Special: Programmer of the Year)
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