Ghost (Korean Films at Cannes 2011)

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Ghost (Korean Films at Cannes 2011)
by JANG Byung-won / May 06, 2011

Short Competition Section Directed by Dahci Ma

Dahci MA (aka LEE Jung-jin), director of the movie "Ghost" has a peculiar talent of making people confused. First she starts with her name, preferring to work as Dahci MA, instead of her real name LEE Jung-jin. "School was never my thing and since grade school I had wanted to be out of there." She got her wish and left school after finishing first year of junior high. As she "had no intention of going back contrary to the wishes of her family which wanted her to at least go to high school," she turned to the world of cinema, partly because she had to find something to replace school. This is when she directed 5 short films by putting together "movie-like stuff I made for fun", and every single one of them has a different style. Short film "Nevertheless" (2005) she made when she was 18 was invited to various film festivals and another short piece she made at 21, "The Mysteries of Nature" (2008) was awarded with Jury Prize at New York's Dance on Camera Festival as the youngest director ever to receive the award. This mysterious 24 year old director that looks somewhat unconventional is wild about <Avatar>, <Transformers>, and <Bourne> series, thus pledging to "make movies that are absolutely entertainment based if I am to make commercial films," which makes her a woman of unpredictable taste.

As a contestant of the 64th Cannes Film Festival's short film competition category, "Ghost" is a bizarre film that shows such features of MA as well. The movie talks about slums that are about to be re-developed. But the slum from the movie does not share common definition of 'a place where new apartments will be built after old, out of date houses are broken down.' Rape murder case occurs at the teardown site. While its residents and the police are obsessed with finding the one who did it, the criminal slips through the investigation and disappears. On TV the news says the police have caught the guy, but crying voices of a girl still echo on the streets. In "Ghost" we meet the phantoms: voices of those who lived there, voices of those who died there, and the faces of gloomy ghosts who still reside there.

Slums from "Ghost" are not spaces that can be converted into dynamics of urban space or economic value. The director gave out a piece of paper to the staff that summarizes the direction of the film. It read 'Bizarre-Subtle-Vague'. As so "Ghost" features grotesque looks, mixing up foreign factors that refuse to be put together. Once again the movie is impossible to be defined as a unified character, just like her previous short films that vetoed consistent style, so much that some even questioned whether they were all indeed made by the same person. Sill montages of the slum that fill up the prologue and epilogue paces around the boundary of experimental and documentary films. Central narrative, where the rape-murderer comes in, stands on the cliché of serial murder genre. Skeletons dance in empty houses standing at "a maze-like neighborhood that's only probably in <Alice in Wonderland>", and at a loss with his desire that bursts out of him, a man pants his breath over the wall paper covered with smell of mold.

Although its characters or background are unrealistic, "Ghost" was inspired by an actual event. Director Dahci MA drafted the story from an experience of a "1 month trip to Pusan in 2010 that was all about redeveloping slums" and a rape-murder case that occurred in Pusan. By shooting the film at an actual location where the crime took place, "Ghost" urges you to imagine the story behind this horrible case. It is obvious much effort was put into using the sound as its composition of audio-visual image is indeed unusual, such as using superficial sounds (for instance the opening sequence of excavator making screeching like a monster), descriptive sounds that enforce the image, as well as collision and counterpoint of image and sounds.

The narrative of "Ghost", where evident reality and grotesque surrealism form the two sides of a coin, refuses the conventional method of cinema interpretation but little by little breaks down the film from inside. "It is my consistency to have no style, that prevents people from predicting the next style I'll come up with," says MA and it is quite likely that she will become an artist of deviation who have no interest in following other people's footsteps. Above all, her attitude that tries to converse with the side beyond a section of life through skillful weaving of multimedia images raises expectations for a fast actions from henceforth.

Korean Films at Cannes Film Festival

The Day He Arrives
Dir. HONG Sangsoo

Un Certain Regard

Director HONG Sangsoo’s latest work <The Day He Arrives> follows a regional college professor and occasional filmmaker on a trip to Seoul, taking place mostly in the Bukchon district of Seoul, which is known for its traditional Korean-style houses.

The Yellow Sea
Dir. NA Hong-jin

Un Certain Regard

Director NA Hong-jin’s second feature <The Yellow Sea> seems to complete a trend and flow of thriller genre films in the industry at peak done by NA Hong-jin himself, who started the trend since his previous film <The Chaser>.

ARIRANG
Dir. KIM Ki-duk

Un Certain Regard

Director KIM Ki-duk returns with his first documentary <ARIRANG> after his latest feature <Dream>(2008). Through <Arirang> he can understand human beings, be thankful of nature, and acknowledge his life as it is now.

Ghost
Dir. Dahci Ma

Short Film in Competition

Dahci Ma (aka LEE Jung-jin)’s <Ghost> talks about slums that are about to be re-developed where a rape murder case occurs, featuring grotesque looks, mixing up foreign factors that refuse to be put together.

Fly by Night
Dir. SON Tae Gyum

Cinefondation

SON Tae-gyum questions the true meaning of sexual identity through the eyes of a young boy experiencing a difficult adolescence.

Finis Operis
Dir. MOON Byoung-Gon

International Critics' Week

"If you are willing to survive, you will die. But if you're willing to die, you will survive." As captured in this Korean saying spoken by Admiral...

In Front of the House
Dir. Lee Tae-Ho

International Critics' Week

The film starts off like any other romantic movie about two inseparable love birds in their twenties...

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