The Day After

Synopsis

“In many ways, The Day After is a quintessential Hong joint. Copious amounts of local spirits are consumed — you just know the eventual box set of his work will be called Fifty Shades of Soju — and people sit around tables and talk, mainly about love, from early morning until well into the night. The result is another finely grained portrait of a miserable male character, who here complains to his new employee about the other two women in his life: his wife and the mistress/co-worker who is now gone and the new arrival is replacing. (…) In terms of the mise-en-scene, the setups are straightforward, with many of the conversations taking place over tables with the characters facing each other and the camera simply panning left or right (…). The zooms here are less brusque than in his last couple of features, lending the films a more wistful, almost French New Wave quality that is further reinforced by the repeated use of a short piece of melancholy, electronic-sounding music credited to the director as well. This is cinematographer Kim Hyung-ku’s fifth collaboration with Hong and his first since 2013’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, though The Day After is closest, because of its fine use of black and white, to their The Day He Arrives (2011).” (Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter)

Around The World in 14 Films 2017, presented by Valeska Grisebach