Review by Cameron Maitland.

When I’d heard that VIFF programmed an experimental, one-take 63-minute long “feature” like Kim Jong-Guk’s Obbah, I was overjoyed to see that they were expanding their scope to include non-traditional narratives. After seeing the film though, it’s obvious the festival doesn’t program experimental works because it has little-to-no standard for them. In film school, I sat through Derek Jarman’s 79-minute blue screen, Micheal Snow’s 49-minute zoom and Kenneth Anger’s 39-minute silent acid trips but I’ve never felt as disinterested and assaulted by nonsense as I did watching Obbah.

The video follows a flaneur camera as it voyeuristically meanders during a farmer’s rally at Seoul Station. The ‘plot’ follows five characters: a mumbling (un-subtitled) street musician, a silent old street preacher and a couple running and the old friend they run into. The majority of the action centers around the friends as they slowly, awkwardly and melodramatically reveal the secret tensions within their relationship. Most of the plot points are moot though as the subtitling is so bad it skips over engrish into complete unintelligibility. My Korean friend who also attended was quick to assure that the bad sound and uninteresting plot points weren’t just a product of the language barrier.

When Jong-Guk took the stage after the film he revealed the liberal use of basic film ‘don’ts’ within the movie such as not thinking of the story first, deciding the plot based on budget and using the rehearsal as the final cut rather than trying another take. With his long take being the only experiment—and an oft-used one in art film—and his narrative being hack-work the only interest and amusement came from passersby running out of the way of his camera or staring straight into it, not knowing what was going on. With Obbah, Jong-Guk tried to get the best of both the narrative and experimental worlds but. in trying to make his film both of these things. he managed to do neither successfully.

Obbah: A Girl's Elder Brother
Kim Jong-Guk | South Korea | 2007 | 63min

Mon. Oct. 1 | 9:30pm | VanCity Theatre
Tues. Oct. 2 | 3:45pm | VanCity Theatre