Like You Know It All

today i saw a movie in downtown seattle that was part of the seattle international film festival, the ticket thanks to Mrs C Wilcox. the following is my take on "Like You Know It All" (South Korea, 2009, 126 min, Dir. Hong Sang-soo):

a 'famous' movie director walks around various visibly-storyboarded and abruptly-defined scenes with a blank face hidden under weakly shrugged shoulders. the movie opens through this main character judging films at a festival, though more peer judging happens than movie judging while most characters try to spout off knowledge through drinks; unfortunately, the banality of their insight led me to feel not only glad but enlightened during any break in scene, any generic camera panning from actors to landscape at the end of 'heavy' dialogue (held for 5 seconds, cut to next scene). twice in the movie was the characterization device used where the main character was signing an autograph for a young woman and was interrupted by a long-time friend who was dropped into the scene, and thus his life. these relationships (as well as many others in the movie) seemed forced, meaningless, confused, both ineffective and without affect. though touted as an 'asshole', the director seems unwittingly so, as his insincerity is simply a combination of bad tact and low self-esteem. when done correctly, revealing this kind of narrator can be quite interesting, however here it is done in such repose that it just seemed like i'd walked into a room that i wasn't supposed to be in.

a befuddled conversation ends starkly; camera pans to a green inch worm on the ground in front; end scene. the main character struggles again and again to get a cigarette out of his pocket to combat awkward dialogue. a supposed good friend is lost because it's revealed (out of the blue) that she was raped in a scene 20 minutes ago, and due mostly to the main character's indifference and lack of consideration. he loses two more good friends because of conversational disagreement; a rock gets thrown at his face, he sleeps with his friend's wife, he daydreams about his friend dying, he walks away quickly. though i did feel slightly light and whimsical at the films end, it could have been simply because of its length and the fact that i had completed something so arduous. relaxed scene of drinking and conversation in an apartment, an older, wiser friend commands the attention:

"what is most important to you in life?"

"everything is important, everything is beautiful..."

"you are so wise."

"i'm not... // we must learn only to live by our own beliefs and by no one else's."

i felt afterward not 'like you know it all' in general, or even about these specific characters. perhaps the title is stark, biting sarcasm. "Like, you know it ALL".