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Review
by
Kevin Ma: |
Imagine two
people walk up to you in the street and call
you by a name you have never heard of. They
try to convince you that they're your childhood
friends, but you have no idea who they are.
When they realize that you're not who they're
looking for, they instead ask you to take up
a missing girl's identity for her dying father.
This is what happens to our anonymous protagonist
in Ad Lib Night, the third film by director
Lee Yoon-Ki, who found arthouse fame with 2004's
This Charming Girl. Shot in ten days
on digital video and originally for a cable
television station, Ad Lib Night is a
subdued comedy-drama about mistaken identity,
solitude and family that's pleasant thanks to
its methodical yet light approach to the subject
matter. Too bad commercial audiences won't have
the patience for small gems like this.
Based on a short
story by Taira Azuko, the film stars Han Hyo-Yu
(in a considerably more difficult role than
My Boss My Teacher) as the mysterious
girl, who asserts that she's not who the men
are looking for, but keeps mum about who she
really is. However, she agrees to go with them
to the rural village anyway - even after she
finds shovels in the back of the car (apparently
these guys are farmers). Upon arriving, the
dying father becomes the least of her problems.
With the father lying unconsciousness thanks
to morphine, both his neighbors and his brother - who conveniently shows up right on time - sit around eating, drinking, talking, smoking,
grieving, and deciding whether this stranger
can pass for a daughter that neglected her family
long ago. And if they have any extra time, they
also break into petty arguments. Meanwhile,
the girl tries to pass the time by doing absolutely
nothing, and finds herself beginning to literally
slip into her new identity.
The brilliance
of Ad Lib Night is that it's so subdued.
Lee eliminates the mistaken identity theme right
away because everyone already knows that the
girl is only pretending to be the daughter.
It subverts convention by not allowing any space
for unnecessary twists, but still manages to
keep the audience guessing as to who this mysterious
girl is. However, Ad Lib Night is just
as much about this pseudo-family as it is about
the girl. The middle section of the film is
devoted mostly to the people around the dying
man, and during that time the film moves slowly
without any real direction (the characters sit,
they eat, they talk, they drink, and not always
necessarily in that order). However, I can argue
that the subdued approach Lee uses to show this
united-by-tragedy family slowly unravel feels
more gripping than any other family argument
onscreen in recent years.
Han Hyo-Yu, however,
also gets her chance to shine. When the mystery
behind her character is finally solved, the
big reveal scene is shot in a quiet way, with
only the girl and the moving scenery outside
the car visible as she tells the truth that
she's been hiding all along. It may be the single
most important moment of the film, but Lee doesn't
treat it as such. Han has very little dialogue
and maintains a poker face throughout, so when
the truth comes out and the emotions finally
begin to show on her face, it's a powerful moment,
even though there's no outburst or dramatic
music to elevate it. Lee's twist, in fact, isn't
even all that surprising. Instead, it sticks
with the set up; the explanation follows basic
logic without having to piece too much together,
and it ties the theme of the film together.
However, Lee's choice to reveal everything about
the girl in the last fifteen minutes does feel
slightly contrived, and it becomes the only
aspect of the film that feels false.
Despite the presence
of a female protagonist and the potential for
lots of family drama, Ad Lib Night is
not really a melodrama. In fact, I would call
Ad Lib Night an anti-melodrama; the emotions
are so muted throughout that when there's a
moment where characters burst out in sobs and
tears, it's so exaggerated that it slyly reveal
small bits about the family and its members
rather than provoking any true emotions. Despite
its settings being a house surrounded by death,
director Lee keeps the proceedings light - the family interactions are often intimate,
but do little to drive its minimalist plot,
and even the family knows that petty arguments
only distract them from the real reason everyone
is under the same roof in the first place. Meanwhile,
the girl, despite being told about the "important"
role she plays, ultimately plays a very small
part in the scheme of things. Everything that
happens to the girl happens within her thoughts,
but Lee amazingly manages to make her a character
to identify with through small moments that
speak so much about her state of mind without
using any verbal exposition. This, folks, is
called visual storytelling.
Of course, there
will still be people who can't help but ask
those burning questions such as, who the girl
is, why she really decided to go along with
the whole thing, what the point of all that
stuff with the dying man's family is, and just
why does the movie move so darn slow? To those
people, I can only say: Look closer. (Kevin Ma
2007)
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