Synopsis
Oddly, Today and the Other Days reminds the audience of an OH Jeong Hui novel. Indeed, it is based on the author’s same-titled short story as indicated in the end credits. The damp, cool atmosphere of the film is identical. But the world this movie portrays is completely different. Unlike the main character in the novel, the film-version heroine Seong Jae cannot speak. She lives with her ever-grumbling father in an old house in a residential zone scheduled for re-development. Though her life appears to be quiet from outside, it is brewing with explosive energy inside. The first scene where she, amid a leisurely bicycle ride, gets slapped in the face by a trucker is ominous. A kitchen knife in her hand is not just another utensil. Toward the latter half of the film, the eerie tension becomes more obvious. Outstanding are the directing that penetrates into her very quiet daily routine, and the plot traveling back and forth between the past and the present. The audience almost completely sympathizes with her, her pain, though the approach to address ‘the prison of life’ theme through sexual catharsis is controversial. Despite the changing mood, the film does not lose a sense of absolute esthetics, an achievement rarely seen among the latest Korean movies. (KIM Yeong Jin)