I remember sitting in a small classroom with two Koreans, a Japanese, a Swiss and a Mexican talking about movies we liked. This was probably 20 years ago.
Slowly the conversation drifted toward French New Wave, Quentin Tarantino, Wang Kar Wai and Korean gangster films. By that time it was just me and the two Koreans with the other students looking on as if we'd started speaking a different language.
Korean films aren't good because they aren't produced in a culture soaked in nostalgia. They're good because they're produced in a culture that, like all living cultures, treats past, present and future arts as alive.
I remember sitting in a small classroom with two Koreans, a Japanese, a Swiss and a Mexican talking about movies we liked. This was probably 20 years ago.
Slowly the conversation drifted toward French New Wave, Quentin Tarantino, Wang Kar Wai and Korean gangster films. By that time it was just me and the two Koreans with the other students looking on as if we'd started speaking a different language.
Korean films aren't good because they aren't produced in a culture soaked in nostalgia. They're good because they're produced in a culture that, like all living cultures, treats past, present and future arts as alive.
This essay speaks from the place of death.