北村方向

Part 1：

Although this movie was made in 2011, the director intended to shoot it in black and white, along with the sudden and direct zoom-in sometimes making it look like an old movie. Additionally, the zoom-in seems to remind the audience that “we are shooting a movie here and what you are seeing is presented deliberately”.

The Day He Arrives is similar as Café Lumiere to some degree, which does not have a clear storyline and focuses on the depiction of relationships and complex emotions. Moreover, both these two movies feature repetitive scenes of bars, meals, drinking, as well as stationary camera and long takes. However, unlike the silence in Café Lumiere, dialogues and monologue of the leading character are the major part of this film.

The movie satirizes men like Seong-jun by depicting his relationship with other people, especially with women. What really interesting and sarcastic is the comparison between how he acts in front of his lovers as well as his female fans and how he acts in front of other people, like those film students and his old partners. In front of the females, he likes to show off knowledge by saying something abstract. He seems confident and powerful in the relationship with women as he is in charge of their interactions and he always pretends to be the role of a life mentor of those women. However, he is kind of a failure in reality. He made four films before he turned to be a professor, which earned him no fame or money. Not many people have watched his films, even the students of film studies have never heard of him or his films (though they claim they watched them, but I believe they are lying out of polite given their expressions). For example, after he had sex with women, he refused to leave his contact information and asked them not to contact him or see him again in the future. However, when he gets along with men, he tends to act in an obsequious way. He called Young-ho for many times and asked him to call him back. At the end of the movie, he leaves his phone number to an unfamiliar man willingly and he suggested one man he used to know to have a drink with him while the man just ignored his invitation intentionally.

The viewpoints about randomness and coincidence in the movie are also very interesting. When something happens repeatedly to us, we may think it is written or there must be some reasons behind it. However, the movie shows that it just happens randomly and there is no certain explanation for it. For example, Seong-jun comes across an actress for many times, which can be a romantic beginning of a cheesy love story, while nothing really happens between Seong-jun and this actress in the movie. Seong-jun just wants to have sex with women instead of building relationships, therefore, in that sense, the so-called “coincidence” acting as an important role in love movies is not needed here. He says that “I love you”, “I cannot live without you” or “I will give you a happy life” to women on the bed but after the sex, he can leave them without any reluctance and without any willingness for further contact.

Part 2：

I’ll talk about the portrayals of male characters in Hong sang soo’s movies. Hong sang soo has made around 20 films and what is interesting is that the leading male characters in these movies are pretty similar from many aspects. We will discuss their shared features and how they are presented in the day he arrives.

Before talking about the male characters in movies, I would like to introduce Hong sang soo very briefly. Hong is a famous korean film director and screenwriter, as well as a professor at Konkuk University. He has experience of being a student of arts both in Korea and U.S.

Outside of his movies, he was known for being reported to have an extramarital affair with an famous korean actress, who had appeared in hong’s movies and much younger than him. His wife publicly complained that hong abandoned her and their daughters.

The reason I mentioned Hong’s career and personal life is because when we look through the male characters created by hong, we can find many similarities between Hong and his characters. We assume that maybe to some degree, all of them are acting as projections of Hong or the class represented by him.

Now let’s back to our topic, the male characters in hong’s movies. These characters share lots of common traits, the most observable one is the similar occupation or social identity. Most of them are doing jobs regarding films or arts. Here is a brief summary of the occupation of male leads in hong’s movies. They are writers, painters, professors, and mostly are film directors. The features of this kind of males are that they are usually publicly regarded as intellectuals or key opinion leader in a society. Also, they are admired by other people, especially females. In the day he arrives, all the women who appeared in this movie express their appreciation for Seong-jun or his films. In particular, the female student and the bar owner fell in love with him, and the female professor Bo-ran showed strong curiosity and interest in Seong-jun.

However, what hond is doing in his films is unlike traditional films, which depict male intellectuals as heroic pioneers of emancipation or persecuted dissidents under social reforms and political movements. Hong is aimed to make the disenchantment of intellectuals. Disenchantment means the cultural rationalization and devaluation of religion apparent in modern society in social sciences. I borrow this term here. It means that Hong tries to reveal the unseen side of intellectuals in previous movies, make them not unreachable or even respectable anymore and break people’s perfect illusions about intellectuals.

Firstly, those intellectuals in Hong’s movies are mostly socially unrecognized. On the one hand, their career paths are not successful as expected. For example, Seong-jun made four films before he left seoul and became a professors in a county, but these films earned him no fame or money. Even the students of film studies cannot recognize him and did not watch his films. Though some of them say they did, but I guess it is out of polite based on their awkward expressions. On the other side, unlike women, the other men in the film tends to have kind of negative views about Seong-jun. Young-ho, his close friend, said seong-jun’s piano performance is embarrassing. Kyung-jin, the ex-actor, claimed that seong-jun is selfish, untrustworthy and cares for money more than friendship.

Secondly, hong achieves the disenchantment by focusing on the intellectuals daily life and exposing how they deal with relationships and lust instead of putting them in social movements. The intellectuals in movies behave indifferently about political or social issues. In the loads of dialogues in this movie, the males mainly talk about women, relationships, and personal conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, ironically, those intellectuals are usually involved in unethical relationships which are not highly accepted by the society like Hong himself. They always have sex impulsively with strangers after drinking alcohol. Additionally, the professors in hong’s movies always have sexual relationships with their female students, not only in the day he arrives, but also lost in the mountains, oki’s movie and our sunhi, while seong-jun actually knows clearly that this kind of relationship is not appropriate.

Another thing differentiates the intellectuals in hong’s movies from traditional heroic ones is that they look coward and hypocritical. For example, seong-jun packages himself by abstract philosophy viewpoints, psychological tricks and clumsy performance in front of women to maintain his identity as an intellectual. However, the alcohol can demolish this package and make him an ordinary man longing for sex.

By looking through these shared features of male characters in hong’s movies, I think the disenchantment of intellectuals make the characters look more realistic and make audience more connected with them.

Hong makes fun of them in his movies, but the movies also convey an idea that these attributes are borned with men.

Hong’s sarcastic and pathetic presentation of male intellectuals can be considered as a self-mocking because those intellectuals are exactly projections of him or the class he represents.

★★★☆（四星为满分） 这个独自在首尔的年轻人是盛俊（刘俊相 饰）。我们得知他是电影导演，已拍过四部电影，但现在住在乡下，停止了工作。他来城里拜访一位老朋友，是位影评人。他通过旁白跟我们说：“我要四处走走，去书店买些书，吃些好吃的…”曾经，在零度以下的一月，我因停飞的航班被困在多伦多，也对任何能读懂我心思的人宣布过这样的事情。 “俊导！”一位漂亮的年轻女子喊道。我们猜她曾给他当过演员。但不太清楚他是否记得。她试图和他交谈，但他总在闪烁其词。他走进一家老酒馆喝了杯，邻桌三个电影专业的年轻学生认出了他。他和他们一起喝醉了，邀请他们跟他一起去一个“特别的地方”，然后当他抽烟且他们都点起了烟时，他突然冲他们喊道，不要再“模仿”他了。令他们惊讶的是，他逃走了。 他敲了敲庆珍（金甫京 饰）的门，一年前他曾爱过且离开过这个女孩。她见到他时并不太高兴。他们交谈，他道歉（不是为他的行为，而似乎是为他的存在），他开始哭泣。 然后是第二天，第一天的元素重新排列。他终于遇见了他的朋友英浩（金相中 饰），他们和一个教电影的亲切女人宝蓝（宋宣美 饰）一起去酒吧。酒吧老板是艺珍，也是由金甫京饰演。他心想：“有趣，她长得可真像她。”他走到雪中抽根烟，她跟着他… 第三天，这些元素又重新排列，在对话、天气和结果上稍作调整。他们似没有意识到自己又回到了同一家酒吧。这是韩国的《土拨鼠之日》吗，导演会对自己的人生有所见解吗？不，这不是那种电影。它更像是种压缩版本，描述了生活是如何重复的，我们是如何模仿自己的行为的，巧合是如何发生的，因为我们让这些事情变得容易，尽管有些日子较好，有些日子较差，但无论如何，你都只能听天由命。 我对这部电影产生了同情的幻想。洪常秀导演并没有提出深刻的观点。他的故事不需要结尾。他接受了所有角色本来的样子。的确，有些男人最终会和一个长得跟前任一模一样的女孩约会。甚至酒吧里的谈话也是令人信服的：你能对另一个人说些什么，让他们相信你完全理解他们？（这是通灵者使用的一种技巧：描述他们外表显示出的个性，然后告诉他们，他们的内心深处是完全相反的。） 这部电影找到了合适的格调来表达它苦乐参半的智慧。它很轻松。它满足于观察和倾听。它讲述了孤独的替代品怎样才能成为清汤。它不会停留超过它受欢迎的期限。而且它是清新、干净的黑白电影，这是正确的媒介，因为颜色会提供过多的情感线索。如果说《北村方向》是一部喜剧，那它就是巴尔扎克心目中的人间喜剧（注：富有人情味的喜剧）：记录人们如何生活、如何交谈、如何奋斗以及如何度日。

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庆珍

崇拜尚俊的女学生，得到偶像垂青的受宠若惊之感让庆珍几年都无法真正放下老师。尚俊总能在最无助（无处可去）的时候想到这个还在等他的傻女人。借酒说出庆珍最想要听到的甜言蜜语，做梦都渴望得到的承诺。

庆珍可能也在尚俊第一次离开后陆陆续续约会过不同的男人，但最终还是觉得男人千篇一律老师的地位无人可以替代。

送别的时候镜头停留在庆珍身后，尚俊甚至还无所顾忌的说了句加油轻松愉快的离开了。

艺珍

当突如其来来势汹涌的示爱已经变成家常便饭，就像是山珍海味变成了一日三餐。早已厌倦这样的表白却也早已习惯了配合出演的逢场作戏，无非是把这挑动对方的情绪当做是快餐罢了。“昨天发生了什么吗？我不记得。”“等你欧巴。”“已经够我回忆很多年。”说出对方最想听的话只为好聚好散。

即便是这样一夜情的关系尚俊仍然要在分别时给艺珍三条人生建议，想来也真是可笑。

离别时，镜头久久停留在艺珍的脸上，更多的不是不舍而是一种与这段短暂经历平静的道别。只为让这三四天有始有终。

宝兰

女教授，可以与男性平起平坐的女性存在。唯一的亲密陪伴Rocky却也要莫名失踪，内心的寂寞苦闷无处排解。刚好还有中年危机不想回家的杨河。两人互相疗伤，派遣寂寞。杨河似乎一直非常尊重宝兰，却依然在宝兰自我怀疑的时候展现了自己的男性权训斥她珍惜当下，不要怀疑自己不要想东想西。并毫无意义的许诺“我会对你'更好'的。”由于已婚身份的最后一点点道德枷锁，最后也因为宝兰一再的试探和酒精崩塌。

这些看似随机的相遇拼凑成了尚俊回到北村的这段回忆，对于回忆的筛选又始整个故事显得这样讽刺虚无。

仅是80分钟的一个小故事，却包罗了各个年龄阶段的男人，女人。看似只是集中在几天的几个偶然小故事，却是电影圈的众生相。