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A director falls in love with a budding artist the right and wrong way.
Sang-Soo Hong is known as the Woody Allen of South Korea and it is easy to see why. Sang-soo Hong is known for using the same character types in varying degrees of different situations. Hong says that while more variety is often the goal of directors, staying in a similar vein gives him more autonomy of his stories. Hong says in an interview “I just know more about them. I don’t have this need to go to different professions, different types of characters. What I do with these simple elements-if I can call them elements-in each film is important.” This is doubly true with this 2016 film where two characters become four separate identities with their own subtle nuances that make compelling individual stories on their own.
A seemingly simplistic boy-meets-girl that fist with the culture’s domination TV drama, but Hong uses artful camera techniques to get us closer to the characters as they reveal themselves to each other. They’re first showing their vulnerabilities and weaknesses in a destructive way and then through profound transcendence and respect for one another.
The opening title is shown twice making Wrong Then, Right Now an interesting story that slightly reminds me of Sliding Doors. A story of how chance not only is affecting us at any time, it is also how we react to those chances and how comfortable we are in those times of newness. Each time we see the story it is eerily familiar however small divergences in the conversations create entirely separate experiences.
In the first set, the title card is entitled ‘Right Then, Wrong Now’. Yoon Hee-Jeong played by Min-hee Kim is a new and budding artist. She is plagued by self-doubt and has a ravenous need for comfort to the point where she is isolated and downcast. When she first meets the Director (Jae-Yeong Jeong), she seems indifferent until she is made to realize that he is famous. Her personality has a direct change in enthusiasm although she herself has never seen his work. She mentions that she used to do something else although she is vague and insecure about her own identity as an artist and mentions that she does not do much of anything and therefore free to join for coffee.
Interest rises between the two over coffee where introductions about Hee-Jeong’s executive decision to leave her modeling career and to start life as an artist. She mentions that she keeps her artwork schedule because if not she is “doomed” and the Director makes his first remarks about her extreme sensitivity to which she has no counter. She shows extreme reluctance to let the Director see her work, and in her studio, she makes failed attempts at an exodus to a corner store. Pigeonholed into no escape, she tentatively makes a few brushstrokes and waits for approval to which the Director makes a gesture at a compliment convincingly enough to float her fading confidence.
At Dinner and over many drinks the director confesses his exuberance at finding a “real woman” and sloppily proposes to Hee-Jeong, disarmed she is flattered and begins to engage in the compliments. The real 180 turn begins when she asks him to elaborate on why she was a real woman. An awkward moment where silence says more than any dialogue written. Hee-Jeong observes this she begins her spiral into herself and laments that she has no friends. Despite this, moments later Hee-Jeong and the Director go to a party where finally we witness the cracks in his own armor and identity.
The Director is not as he seems to this point. Throughout the first half, we catch glimpses of his own self-importance when he opens up introductions with leading statements to his own fame however his interactions are still mostly together and tame until Hee-Jeong’s friend asks direct questions to which under the influence of alcohol he crumbles and yet avoids direct confrontation or honesty.
The Director’s fame is not all that it seems at his lecture of a meager audience of less than a dozen, including Hee-Jeong’s friend that was at the party last night. In the interview, he is asked a question that he cannot answer and begins a diatribe about the meaninglessness of words. We imagine this is how he must have felt last night in response to Hee-Jeong’s question. For whatever his commercial worth, he is not in touch with his emotions in a healthy way and therefore not a true artist either.
Outside, Hee-Jeong’s friend stops to give the Director a love note this illuminates Hee-Jeong’s cryptic statement of not having friends. The director ends the first half with giving away his own insecurities by projection onto the interviewer. Showing himself to be a selfish, vain, and ignorant man who has deluded himself by self-importance from his success as a Director and yet cannot answer questions about his craft or emotions. We as an audience now have a better understanding of Hee-Jeong’s night and regret seeing her through the lens of the Director.
Part two: Right Now, Wrong Then
At first, I was not sure what was happening, since I don’t read Korean but I watched patiently and hoped that I would have the attention and tenacity to not get bored. It was a real concern of mine, however quickly I began to notice subtle differences and felt relieved. Sang-soo Hong must have been afraid of this and took pains to avoid falling off.
The story begins much the same. Looking back, the temple must have been a sacred space where their IDs could be taken away and therefore meaningfully engage with each other on a different level. Once in the coffee shop, we see a much more confident Hee-Jeong. When pegged as extremely sensitive there is a quick reply that it takes one to know one. Her insecurities are still there but in this angle, she owns them, not believing the Director’s compliment up front but cautiously taking the information in and considering it when he tells her that she is beautiful. She laughs when he tells her that she does not know herself. I found that a beautiful little addition that showcased her full force as an actualized individual.
The Director has changed too, in the studio he showcases immense bravery by giving open and honest criticism of Hee-Jeong’s work. Hee-Jeong has already professed her recent commitment to art and she was offered advice from someone successful. We begin to worry when Hee-Jeong is upset and cold to the Director, but it is an honest expression of her emotions to a hurtful interaction in the moment instead of an internalized self-pity.
At dinner, she acknowledges his drinking but approves of his continuation under the understanding that she herself will not try to keep up. The Director again proposes and states her merit as a real woman but continues by showing his pain by confessing his marriage and children. He explains that it was an early marriage and I think this is Sang-soo Hong’s way of explaining the “wrong then” of the second half.
The end the night walking home from the party and unable to keep away from each other despite the biting cold when he asks Hee-Jeong to sneak outside again. He leaves soon after and we are afraid that they will not see each other again but Hee-Jeong shows up to his movies to say goodbye. It will be her first show of his and now she will have so much more information to understand his own art and herself having validated herself as someone who can engage with an artist in their own right.
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