A tale of what cinema can do to those in its thrall, filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s sixth feature is composed of two halves. In the first, a young man encounters a woman he used to know, and after a drunken night together, the two make a double-suicide pact. In the second, a slightly older man has a seemingly similar experience. It becomes apparent that the first half was in fact a film-within-the-film whose male lead appears to be based upon him. A key work in the first phase of Hong’s career, Tale of Cinema is something like a Rosetta Stone for his subsequent twice-told tales. (2005, Korean with English subtitles, 89 minutes)
This film is part of our Tales of Cinema: The World of Hong Sangsoo series.