RANCHEZ, Jan Karlo Thomas V.

March 2, 2019
MA LL 1 MLL 298 - SAT 2 (1:00-4:00/SAT)

A critical analysis of the movie “Tale of Cinema”

“Tale of Cinema” is a South Korean film directed by Hong Sang-soo. The first half of the
movie presents a film about an indecisive teenage man named Jeon Sang-won who refused to
have a walk with his brother. As he walked away towards the street, he met his former girlfriend
named Choi Yongsil and invited her out after her work. Sang-won decided to watch a play first
while waiting for Yongsil. They went out and decided to have a good time until Sang-won
decided to end his life and surprisingly, Yongsil also decided to accompany him in doing such.
They bought pills from numerous pharmacies and they have opted to each other not to make love
because they wanted to die “clean.” In the middle of the night, Yongsil woke up and decided to
call up Sang-won’s family, leaving Sang-won alone to where they have spent the night together.
Sang-won was confronted by his family and the film ended with him standing at a building’s
rooftop, screaming. This is where the shift in the movie took place where the film was actually
shown to theaters and watched by a man named Dong-soo. The film’s director was his former
classmate. Dong-soo encountered the young actress in person and decided to make himself into
her company, acting out the gestures in the movie and revisiting locations from the film in an
attempt to realize his own created image of the actress. In the end, it was revealed that the film
was actually his “true” life story, that he just told to his friend, who was the director of the film,
what kind of life he had and that was what actually transpired in the film.
Dong-soo was a bit “obsessed” in watching the said film made by his former classmate
not because he was a “struggling” or a “frustrated” filmmaker but because the film was the actual
representation or reflection of his own experience/s. He mentioned this to Yong-sil by the time
they went out together. Perhaps, it was Dong-soo’s way of relieving himself whenever he
watched that film that would reflect his real-life experiences. He identifies himself with the
character ‘Sang-won’ in the film because they went through the same circumstances. Although
he mentioned that he cannot forgive his classmate for making his personal life a public one, on
Dong-soo’s unconscious, he feels comfort. Somehow, he is experiencing a social healing through
the film about his life.
Next, Dong-soo encountered the actress from the film and what Dong-soo did was to do
anything that he could just to get to know more about the actress and be with her company. They
met at a gathering and Dong-soo followed Yongsil after the said event. Dong-soo’s conscious
mind may dictate him to do such action. There were times when Yongsil refused to interact or
hesitant to interact with Dong-soo and he could have stop approaching her but what he did was
the otherwise because he continued to approach the actress. One could say that Dongsoo was
attracted to Yongsil and this could be a product of Dong-soo’s unconscious state or a product of
his id because of his ‘impulse.’
Aside from the fact that Dong-soo was attracted to the actress, he somehow re-acted the
actions from the movie he watched. He and Yongsil went out for a drink and later that night they
also made love. This could be the manifestation of Dong-soo’s unconscious when he watched the
film. It’s because the film was a reflection of his life, and then he encountered the actress
personally, he aggressively made actions that were similar from the film. His emotional drive
was strong that was enabled by the movie. Aside from the connection Dong-soo had with Sang-
won’s character, he felt that he could re-live what happened in the film.
 Lastly, it was entitled such because the movie shows how a real-life experience could
actually be put into cinema. That in a life of a man, our story could be a “tale” and that Dong-
soo’s tale was the “tale of cinema” shown to people.