北村方向

庆珍

崇拜尚俊的女学生，得到偶像垂青的受宠若惊之感让庆珍几年都无法真正放下老师。尚俊总能在最无助（无处可去）的时候想到这个还在等他的傻女人。借酒说出庆珍最想要听到的甜言蜜语，做梦都渴望得到的承诺。

庆珍可能也在尚俊第一次离开后陆陆续续约会过不同的男人，但最终还是觉得男人千篇一律老师的地位无人可以替代。

送别的时候镜头停留在庆珍身后，尚俊甚至还无所顾忌的说了句加油轻松愉快的离开了。

艺珍

当突如其来来势汹涌的示爱已经变成家常便饭，就像是山珍海味变成了一日三餐。早已厌倦这样的表白却也早已习惯了配合出演的逢场作戏，无非是把这挑动对方的情绪当做是快餐罢了。“昨天发生了什么吗？我不记得。”“等你欧巴。”“已经够我回忆很多年。”说出对方最想听的话只为好聚好散。

即便是这样一夜情的关系尚俊仍然要在分别时给艺珍三条人生建议，想来也真是可笑。

离别时，镜头久久停留在艺珍的脸上，更多的不是不舍而是一种与这段短暂经历平静的道别。只为让这三四天有始有终。

宝兰

女教授，可以与男性平起平坐的女性存在。唯一的亲密陪伴Rocky却也要莫名失踪，内心的寂寞苦闷无处排解。刚好还有中年危机不想回家的杨河。两人互相疗伤，派遣寂寞。杨河似乎一直非常尊重宝兰，却依然在宝兰自我怀疑的时候展现了自己的男性权训斥她珍惜当下，不要怀疑自己不要想东想西。并毫无意义的许诺“我会对你'更好'的。”由于已婚身份的最后一点点道德枷锁，最后也因为宝兰一再的试探和酒精崩塌。

这些看似随机的相遇拼凑成了尚俊回到北村的这段回忆，对于回忆的筛选又始整个故事显得这样讽刺虚无。

仅是80分钟的一个小故事，却包罗了各个年龄阶段的男人，女人。看似只是集中在几天的几个偶然小故事，却是电影圈的众生相。

Part 1：

Although this movie was made in 2011, the director intended to shoot it in black and white, along with the sudden and direct zoom-in sometimes making it look like an old movie. Additionally, the zoom-in seems to remind the audience that “we are shooting a movie here and what you are seeing is presented deliberately”.

The Day He Arrives is similar as Café Lumiere to some degree, which does not have a clear storyline and focuses on the depiction of relationships and complex emotions. Moreover, both these two movies feature repetitive scenes of bars, meals, drinking, as well as stationary camera and long takes. However, unlike the silence in Café Lumiere, dialogues and monologue of the leading character are the major part of this film.

The movie satirizes men like Seong-jun by depicting his relationship with other people, especially with women. What really interesting and sarcastic is the comparison between how he acts in front of his lovers as well as his female fans and how he acts in front of other people, like those film students and his old partners. In front of the females, he likes to show off knowledge by saying something abstract. He seems confident and powerful in the relationship with women as he is in charge of their interactions and he always pretends to be the role of a life mentor of those women. However, he is kind of a failure in reality. He made four films before he turned to be a professor, which earned him no fame or money. Not many people have watched his films, even the students of film studies have never heard of him or his films (though they claim they watched them, but I believe they are lying out of polite given their expressions). For example, after he had sex with women, he refused to leave his contact information and asked them not to contact him or see him again in the future. However, when he gets along with men, he tends to act in an obsequious way. He called Young-ho for many times and asked him to call him back. At the end of the movie, he leaves his phone number to an unfamiliar man willingly and he suggested one man he used to know to have a drink with him while the man just ignored his invitation intentionally.

The viewpoints about randomness and coincidence in the movie are also very interesting. When something happens repeatedly to us, we may think it is written or there must be some reasons behind it. However, the movie shows that it just happens randomly and there is no certain explanation for it. For example, Seong-jun comes across an actress for many times, which can be a romantic beginning of a cheesy love story, while nothing really happens between Seong-jun and this actress in the movie. Seong-jun just wants to have sex with women instead of building relationships, therefore, in that sense, the so-called “coincidence” acting as an important role in love movies is not needed here. He says that “I love you”, “I cannot live without you” or “I will give you a happy life” to women on the bed but after the sex, he can leave them without any reluctance and without any willingness for further contact.

Part 2：

I’ll talk about the portrayals of male characters in Hong sang soo’s movies. Hong sang soo has made around 20 films and what is interesting is that the leading male characters in these movies are pretty similar from many aspects. We will discuss their shared features and how they are presented in the day he arrives.

Before talking about the male characters in movies, I would like to introduce Hong sang soo very briefly. Hong is a famous korean film director and screenwriter, as well as a professor at Konkuk University. He has experience of being a student of arts both in Korea and U.S.

Outside of his movies, he was known for being reported to have an extramarital affair with an famous korean actress, who had appeared in hong’s movies and much younger than him. His wife publicly complained that hong abandoned her and their daughters.

The reason I mentioned Hong’s career and personal life is because when we look through the male characters created by hong, we can find many similarities between Hong and his characters. We assume that maybe to some degree, all of them are acting as projections of Hong or the class represented by him.

Now let’s back to our topic, the male characters in hong’s movies. These characters share lots of common traits, the most observable one is the similar occupation or social identity. Most of them are doing jobs regarding films or arts. Here is a brief summary of the occupation of male leads in hong’s movies. They are writers, painters, professors, and mostly are film directors. The features of this kind of males are that they are usually publicly regarded as intellectuals or key opinion leader in a society. Also, they are admired by other people, especially females. In the day he arrives, all the women who appeared in this movie express their appreciation for Seong-jun or his films. In particular, the female student and the bar owner fell in love with him, and the female professor Bo-ran showed strong curiosity and interest in Seong-jun.

However, what hond is doing in his films is unlike traditional films, which depict male intellectuals as heroic pioneers of emancipation or persecuted dissidents under social reforms and political movements. Hong is aimed to make the disenchantment of intellectuals. Disenchantment means the cultural rationalization and devaluation of religion apparent in modern society in social sciences. I borrow this term here. It means that Hong tries to reveal the unseen side of intellectuals in previous movies, make them not unreachable or even respectable anymore and break people’s perfect illusions about intellectuals.

Firstly, those intellectuals in Hong’s movies are mostly socially unrecognized. On the one hand, their career paths are not successful as expected. For example, Seong-jun made four films before he left seoul and became a professors in a county, but these films earned him no fame or money. Even the students of film studies cannot recognize him and did not watch his films. Though some of them say they did, but I guess it is out of polite based on their awkward expressions. On the other side, unlike women, the other men in the film tends to have kind of negative views about Seong-jun. Young-ho, his close friend, said seong-jun’s piano performance is embarrassing. Kyung-jin, the ex-actor, claimed that seong-jun is selfish, untrustworthy and cares for money more than friendship.

Secondly, hong achieves the disenchantment by focusing on the intellectuals daily life and exposing how they deal with relationships and lust instead of putting them in social movements. The intellectuals in movies behave indifferently about political or social issues. In the loads of dialogues in this movie, the males mainly talk about women, relationships, and personal conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, ironically, those intellectuals are usually involved in unethical relationships which are not highly accepted by the society like Hong himself. They always have sex impulsively with strangers after drinking alcohol. Additionally, the professors in hong’s movies always have sexual relationships with their female students, not only in the day he arrives, but also lost in the mountains, oki’s movie and our sunhi, while seong-jun actually knows clearly that this kind of relationship is not appropriate.

Another thing differentiates the intellectuals in hong’s movies from traditional heroic ones is that they look coward and hypocritical. For example, seong-jun packages himself by abstract philosophy viewpoints, psychological tricks and clumsy performance in front of women to maintain his identity as an intellectual. However, the alcohol can demolish this package and make him an ordinary man longing for sex.

By looking through these shared features of male characters in hong’s movies, I think the disenchantment of intellectuals make the characters look more realistic and make audience more connected with them.

Hong makes fun of them in his movies, but the movies also convey an idea that these attributes are borned with men.

Hong’s sarcastic and pathetic presentation of male intellectuals can be considered as a self-mocking because those intellectuals are exactly projections of him or the class he represents.

五月份的戛纳电影节，洪尚秀新片《在外国》入围了竞赛单元。尽管坊间有说法，戛纳那边是卖了主演于佩尔的人情，然而，洪尚秀这些年在三大电影节（尤其是戛纳）上大受欢迎却是个不争事实。算起来，这是他第三次入围竞赛，此前的《夏夏夏》、《北村方向》入围了一种关注单元。面对第二春的创作爆发，他成功力压其他几位本土导演，成为韩国作者电影的头号代表人物。 如果以《北村方向》为例，不难看出洪尚秀的心境变化。当年拿得起可能会放不下，现在一切尽在不言中。在洪尚秀的作品体系里，最适合作为《北村方向》比较对象的是《处女心经》，故事都发生在首尔（汉城），风格上又都是黑白摄影。情欲依然起伏，然而十年过去，主角们的年纪都可以加上十岁，洪尚秀也不再注重男人与男人或者男人与女人的爱情角力，他对首尔的环境和夜晚的气息似乎更感兴趣。在《处女心经》的年代，洪尚秀还比较痴迷于叙事结构的变换，而到了《北村方向》前后几部，洪尚秀只是写着某个人的影像日记，看下来简单流畅。 在《北村方向》里，他感叹着首尔的大雪，回忆起校园时代的恋爱往事，也赞美黑白的城市最美。这种黑与白既是视觉上的鲜明反差，更是夜晚与白天的界限。往更远处想，那就有如一张牌的正反面，男人与女人，他们是全然不同的两种动物。或许，正如片中人物所讲的，洪尚秀也在走极端，强化男人的冷漠、软弱还有虚伪，进而成功俘获一批人的好感。 寒冷的首尔，寂寞的空气，它们是解读《北村方向》的入口，准确说是情感和情绪的入口。然而，我更愿意从“门”上面去解读。在导演跑去旧爱家中的一段，在小说酒吧的一段，门不断出现，尤其是后者，那条门前走道多次出现。再到分别时候，导演还回望了一下。按照上世纪九十年代流行的编剧理论，门可以是滑动门、任意门，也是片中人物谈论的偶然。一旦开启这些门，故事总会掉落到另一片领域。就像导演恰好撞见了三个搞电影的学生，喝醉后摸到了旧爱的家。表面上，没碰到这群人然后又不喝醉的情况下，事情好像不至于发生，这分明只是一次偶然。实际上，又如导演的自我剖析，那无非是人们去寻找背后的理由，寻找事情之所以会发生的理由，然后把它称之为偶然。从《玉熙的电影》到《北村方向》，洪尚秀都会抓住适当时机，对人生哲学进行一番通俗的辩论。 名叫多情的韩餐店，名叫小说的小酒屋，在这些名字的背后，洪尚秀似乎隐藏了对《北村方向》的一些关键词提示。当导演说老板娘和旧爱长得很像，那更多只是种理由和借口。尽管洪尚秀也曾寻找过生活中的诗意，但不同于中国的吕乐，洪尚秀似乎更喜欢无意的邂逅，最好还是纯粹直接。在讨论偶然和极限的前前后后，我们会注意到女老板总是身不在场，姗姗来迟；导演总要谈了一段曲子，跑门口抽根事后烟；其实无须猜测也无须自白，人物的存在状态已经暴露了他们的内心。像导演被介绍了三次，这是故意的错误，还只是生活中的疏忽。当导演和宝兰表现得若有若无，另一边的大哥已经按捺不住情绪。重逢的朋友和恋人、过去的演员还有相识，借助这些角色对导演的态度（其实可能也不需要），不难想象男主人公到底是什么货色。当他提出“不想被拍”，镜头却对准了他那张略显尴尬和紧张的脸。 跟《玉熙的电影》的相似，《北村方向》有一种奇妙的节奏感，一店又一店，一天又一天，异样的舒适。从碰杯、赞美到朋友间起的话题，他们都在寻找彼此相同的节奏和韵律。一夜过后，导演叮嘱老板娘，第三条是写日记。日记，每天形式相似，每天的内容却不同。转门背后，这一次的意外和上一次区别不大。 最后，夜晚和白天，它们也没有什么太大不同，只是一旦光线骤减，夜晚不仅会减少人的安全感，也会让人与人看起来更相似一些。一旦这样，人与人相亲相近的可能性岂会有不增加的道理？想想两次突然的吻，那是天冷，是空气的作用，更是夜晚的魅力。在我看来，这些吻的背后，既有人物的过去，也有众多洪尚秀作品的过去。【北京青年报】

洪尚秀式的欲望法则是“下雪了，就应该去喝杯酒”。

《北村方向》里的男主尚俊与三位女性，不同方式，不同故事，但都遵循相同的逻辑。

男性视角的展开，让电影里的男主显得可笑也可怕。于他而言，爱情是模糊的，而情欲是具体的。所以其间的道德感就变得尴尬又局促。只几秒，就会被欲望冲垮。但还是有冠冕堂皇的借口。

而这其中的三位女性，如果从她们的视角出发，究竟那些夜晚会以怎样的面貌出现？

一起看这部电影的人说：“如果男人都是这样的，那我要怎么有信心去爱人？”

看电影，处在观众的位置，很容易对角色和故事居高临下。但放到现实的处境里，面对种种选择，很可能我们也都做不出更好的决定。

将事物放到两个极端下检视，一切瞬间变得准确。但同时是假象。生活的发现常常是偶然事件的组合，但我们找出几个理由。文艺青年最擅长逻辑自洽。

自我陈情，看清了自己的极限，便开始频频对生活妥协。算不上一个好的借口。狡猾的诚实其实极其可鄙。

看洪尚秀电影，很重要的是在文本和影像里，试着去了解人。接受普通人的恶和不堪，避免圆滑，努力去成为一个相对诚实和超脱的人。

一起喝酒的后辈叫宝兰， 艺珍的酒吧叫小说， 另一个酒馆叫多情， 弹了两次的曲子是肖邦升C小调第20号夜曲。

醉了酒的柳成俊走到庆珍家附近，心里嘀咕着： “不知不觉又走到她家楼前了，她还住在这儿吗？都快过去两年了，还住在这儿吗？” 他走进她家楼道，走上楼，把耳朵贴近她家门前，心里继续嘀咕：“还在吗？现在还在吗？” 然后敲响了门。

在谈到人生的偶然时，成俊说：“就是这些没有理由的事聚到一起构成了我们的人生，然后我们故意从其中挑选几个当做理由，连成一条思考的主线罢了。 就是那几个点连成的，我们就管他叫理由。”

成俊和宝兰在门外抽烟的时候，下了首尔的第一场雪。 他们三人第一晚喝完酒出来，英浩兄说： “突然想起以前，过去的日子。 夜晚的空气都是过去的味道。”

这是目前为止，我最喜欢的一部洪尚秀。