Night and Day (Bam gua nat - 2008)

With apologies to Cole Porter:
Night and Day, is very long,
And to stay awake all the way through, you'll have to be strong.

An immature 40-something guy, Kim Sung-nam, goes to Paris, telling everyone he's studying painting at the Beaux-Arts school, but we never see him hold a brush (though the reviewers, all with spoilers, knew more than we did: the New York Times and Variety refer to him as a "celebrated painter," and the Village Voice calls him an artist). The format is that of a diary, with the day and month up on the screen frequently (I tried to keep track of how many days but I have forgotten since I saw four movies in four days starting almost a week ago; this was the first). Sung-nam lives in a Korean boarding house and spends his time walking around the city and meeting ex-pat Korean girls. It baffled us that such a lout would score so often but then the girls are all crazy anyway (is that a spoiler? Sorry). Instead of a brush, he invariably has in his hand a plastic shopping bag, perhaps his free version of a backpack. Apparently the Musée D'Orsay in Paris commissioned this movie from director Hong Sang-soo, as well as Summer Hours from Olivier Assayas (France) and Flight of the Red Balloon from Hsiao-hsien Hou (I loved the 1956 classic short; the Chinese director's version is a remake and I haven't seen it), and all three included scenes in that museum (I wondered how permission was granted to shoot in there). Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, which we enjoyed, runs throughout. On the one hand, it's your typical fish-out-of-water story. On the other hand, Sung-nam seldom runs into anyone who doesn't speak his native language (when he does, he speaks English because he has learned no French).

There are things to like about this Korean movie but it is so slow that the 2:24 running time was rough. If a third of it had been edited out, Jack and I would have been happier. It's validating that the Variety review states repeatedly that this should be edited more. Before we left for the theatre, Jack read on flixter that someone found this movie "hilarious." We can't figure out why. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Oh, and the movie breaks my Rule # 2, the exception that proves it.