Time (2006)

Directed By Ki-Duk Kim

Time is possibly one of the most anomalous of Ki-duk Kim’s movies. Although possessing some of his characteristic surreal flair, the story-advancing dialogue and characterization revealed through short scenes and normal conversation makes the film a hybrid. While watching the movie, I often felt like I was watching another director try to emulate Kim’s style instead of watching Kim create something different.

Time is a poetic critique on physical and intellectual love. Ji-won and Seh-hee have been dating for two years and while they both confess to being in love, Seh-hee is extremely jealous and paranoid about how attractive her boyfriend views her. Based on her insecurities, the slightest provocation causes her to explode, such as Ji-won giving his business card to another woman. Her fears are confounded when she has trouble sexually arousing Ji-won, prompting her to suggest he imagine another woman during sex, which (thankfully?) works. Sometime later, Seh-hee visits a plastic surgeon and requests that the doctor give her a brand new face. She doesn’t tell Ji-won, instead disappearing after the surgery. Ji-won, confused as to what happened to Seh-hee, starts reluctantly pursuing other women due to his confessed loneliness. However, some event always seems to interrupt his attempt to have sex, such as a window breaking or sudden change of heart from the women he’s after. At the same time, Ji-won is still in love with Seh-hee and just wants her to come back.

Then a new girl appears in his life, See-hee (the names are painfully similar, so read carefully so you know which one I’m discussing), that seems to get along with him perfect. Given the name and weird similarities between Seh-hee and See-hee, the audience suspects this new woman is Seh-hee after plastic surgery, although Ji-won never reaches the same conclusion (what, when your boyfriend/girlfriend leaves without a word, plastic surgery to ignite passion isn’t your first assumption?). While the relationship blossoms, Ji-won still confesses his love for Seh-hee, gladly breaking up with his “new” girlfriend when he receives a letter signed by Seh-hee. But when Ji-won goes to the meeting at a cafe and See-hee confesses that she is Seh-hee, Ji-won angrily rebukes her for putting him through such an emotional rollercoaster. Seh-hee, realizing her plan to rekindle their romance backfires, goes into a state of emotional shock. At the same time, Ji-won is broken and in his desperation decides to undergo the same procedure as Seh-hee: massive plastic surgery and then appear to See-hee, never mentioning his previous identity, and then the two would implicitly continue their relationship. We start following See-hee as she searches everywhere trying to find a chance encounter with the new Ji-won. But each one of the men that sort of look like old Ji-won have something missing, something that throws See-hee off the trail. The whole time, the audience wonders what would happen if See-hee were wrong – what if she rejects the new Ji-won?

One of the reoccurring motifs in Kim’s movies are climatic character decisions that are open to interpretation. This is extremely hard to pull off because it walks a fine line between disconnecting the audience from the character – if we can’t understand why a character makes a choice, it is usually a sign that the director/actor has underperformed in their communicative goals. Kim does an amazing job in all the movies I’ve seen of making these decisions muddled, as in he challenges the convention. We can look at Ji-won’s decision to change his face through several different ideas without clearly finding the correct reason. I viewed his decision as passive-aggressive revenge, to give See-hee a taste of her own medicine so they both understand what each went through. Or maybe Ji-won interprets Seh-hee’s plastic surgery as Seh-hee’s death, a star-crossed lovers moment where he decides to “kill” Ji-won as well. Maybe both characters are crazy, an accusation directed at Seh-hee/See-hee throughout the film by different characters at different times. I think there are more interpretations available for Ji-won’s decision that I haven’t even considered, notwithstanding, hopefully I’ve illustrated the artistic merit from Kim’s vagueness.

Like other of Kim’s movies, Time carries levels of artistic surrealism that enhance the film interpretation. For example, the second scene of the movie has Seh-hee accidently colliding with a woman leaving a plastic surgeon and breaking a framed picture. Seh-hee apologizes and takes the picture with her to meet Ji-won, causing Ji-won to remark that the woman in the picture looks crazy. The last scene is the exact same, except now we see See-hee leaving the plastic surgeon and Seh-hee bumping into her, braking the same photograph. Therefore the causation that puts everything else into motion is also the culmination of the experience, an unexplained surreal circle.

Another surreal experience involves the cafe, which is almost like an dead zone without memory. Ji-won, Seh-hee and See-hee cause so much trouble in this little cafe that it’s amazing they are always welcomed back and that nobody seems to remember them. At one point, See-hee works in the cafe, but is unrecognized by her boss when she returns later. At another point, See-hee screams when a man talking to her touches her shoulder and asks her to wait, causing a waitress to drop her tray and recoil in fear. Ji-won starts a fight with another customer by belligerently yelling at See-hee. At one point, See-hee shows up to the cafe wearing a paper mask of Seh-hee in the creepiest and oddest moment in the film. Oddly, the customers and other employees always seem to forget (or at least fail to react like we would assume).

The title of the movie may help illuminate some of the meaning, although with most of Kim’s films, they are layered and impossible to dissect under one interpretation. The best meaning I gathered from the film involved the explanation for why Seh-hee decided to change her entire person: that she wanted to resist or reset the passage of time. After two years, she felt the relationship was stale and familiar. She wanted to create new and exciting memories, in other words, relive the best moments of her relationship. Under the impression that this was impossible for Ji-won and Seh-hee, she adopts a new personality and tries to casually recreate those identical moments. Auxiliary characters try to counsel a lonely Ji-won by explaining Seh-hee’s eccentric jealousy as a manifestation of passionate love. The plastic surgeon echoes these statements – that Seh-hee loved Ji-won so much that she tried to reignite his passion. While far less introductory as other of Kim’s movies, Time is still an artistic and interesting expose on love.

 

I love these images from the film. The second image, of See-hee sitting on the hand sculpture, is utilized throughout the film.

In what I understand to be Kim’s artistic devotion to his movies, the actress playing See-hee, Hyeon-a Seong, is uncredited in Time, despite the fact she carries 3/4 of the movie. This makes it look like Ji-yeon Park, playing Seh-hee for 15 minutes, is the actual costar with Jung-woo Ha, playing Ji-won (all mentioned on IMDB). Don’t hate me for thinking that is brilliant to maintain the illusion that Ji-yeon Park covered both roles.

On Amazon: Time and Netflix.