“Me and Me” Theatrical Poster
Director: Jung Jin-Young
Cast: Cho Jin-Woong, Bae Soo-Bin, Cha Soo-Yeon, Jung Hae-Kyun, Jang Won-Young, No Kang-Min
Running Time: 105 min.
By Paul Bramhall
It’s always interesting when an actor decides to try their hand at directing, and in the Korean film industry there’s been no shortage of examples. From Ha Jung-woo’s Airplane! styled comedy Fasten Your Seatbelt in 2013, to Cho Jae-hyun’s rather Hong Sang-soo-esque take on the folly of man in 2015’s A Break Alone, such productions serve to give an insight into what makes their creators tick. In both of these movies, notably Jung-woo and Jae-hyun not only directed but also wrote the scripts, and that trend continues in 2020’s Me and Me, in which veteran actor Jung Jin-young steps behind the camera and into the director’s chair.
Jin-young is one of those actors who, if you’ve even seen just a handful of Korean movies, you’ll have likely come across him at least once. From early appearances as the detective in Korea’s take on the Ring with The Ring Virus, to playing the king in the acclaimed The King and The Clown, to more recent efforts like Svaha: The Sixth Finger, he’s an actor who never dials in a performance. For his directorial debut he steps behind the camera completely, for a tale which offers up one of the more unique cinematic experiences that Korea had to offer in 2020.
Proceedings open with us being introduced to a happy couple played by Bae Soo-bin (26 Years, Warriors of the Dawn) and Cha Soo-yeon (Beautiful, Yoga), who’ve recently moved to a rural town from Seoul. Soo-bin is a teacher at the local school, and although everything seems to be going well on the surface, the pair hide a secret that Soo-yeon is possessed by a different spirit each night, never knowing who she’s going to be once darkness falls. Although they do their best to keep it under wraps, as with any small community, eventually the secret gets out, and the traditional villagers force some rather extreme measures upon the couple to minimise the risk of Soo-yeon escaping from the house at night. While the pair adapt, a mysterious occurrence one night leads to tragedy, and a detective played by Cho Jin-woong (Believer, A Hard Day) is sent to the village to get to the bottom of what took place.
While the above synopsis may indicate a supernatural mystery, and to some degree elements of Me and Me do fit the bill, to shoebox it into any one genre would feel like doing it a misjustice. While the plot is a key component to the events which take place within the narrative, much like Lee Chang-dong’s Burning from a couple of years prior, it’s ultimately there to raise more questions than it is to provide answers. Shot in just under a month on a budget of $0.6 million, Jin-young himself describes Me and Me as an indie movie, one which just happened to get wide distribution thanks to the talent involved, who all worked for a lower rate than usual to support Jin-young’s vision.
Jin-woong, who’s top billed in the cast, is missing almost entirely from the initial third, serving to blindside the audience as to what’s actually going on. However in this case being blindsided is far from being a negative, instead turning what initially seems to be a thriller about solving another rural town set mystery that we’ve seen so often in Korean cinema, into something entirely different. Jin-young expressed in an interview that he’d contemplated directing for a while, but wanted it to be something which had meaning, and would provide audiences with a chance to think about their own existence. Much like Kim Ki-duk’s One on One ends by asking the audience ‘Who am I?’, Me and Me feels like it’s asking the same question, albeit in a very different way.
The crux of the narrative kicks in when Jin-woong rounds up the villagers in the local community hall for questioning, which is inadvertently turned into a birthday celebration for the village elder, and draws out an unexpected confession. Seemingly bringing the case to a close, after indulging in some of the locally made pine needle liquor, Jin-woong wakes up the next day with no trace of his identity from the day before, and everyone believing him to be someone else entirely. To go into any more detail would spoil the experience of Me and Me (I say experience, as there’s really no spoilers to be had), and similar to Burning and Parasite is best viewed by going in knowing as little as possible.
It’s easy to understand why Jin-young’s debut is likely to be a polarising experience for audiences, which is why I feel it’s important to clarify at least some of the directors intent before going into it. As a first time director, it’s an undeniably bold move to basically eschew the traditional narrative structure that audiences expect from a movie, serving up a mystery which isn’t intended to be solved. While on the surface it understandably frustrates, once the intent behind it is understood, the way Me and Me is structured begins to make a lot more sense. It also means that the initial viewing practically demands to be watched more than once. There are hints dropped throughout the punchy 105 minute runtime for the audience to pick up, which are impossible to appreciate on the first watch, making Me and Me something of a cinematic onion which begs to be peeled.
Perhaps more than any other movie out there, based on its structure alone Me and Me most resembles David Lynch’s 1997 neo-noir Lost Highway. Both productions deal with the question of identity, and while Lost Highway frames its questions within a hazy concoction of sex, betrayal, and murder, Me and Me on the other hand takes a distinctly zen buddhist approach, wherein both the question and the answer are just as important as each other. While I’ve no doubt Jin-young didn’t intentionally mirror Lynch’s controversial classic, the parallels are hard to ignore. Both Jin-young and Lynch have said that their work is open to interpretation by the audience that watches it, accepting that each viewer may come to a different conclusion with no one outcome being the correct one, and both productions where frequently labelled incoherent upon their initial release.
Me and Me no doubt benefits from the talent Jin-young was able to bring onboard. Jin-woong gives a stellar performance as always. As an actor I’d seen him play supporting parts in many movies since the start of the Korean Wave, but the first time he truly registered was as the villain of the piece in 2013’s A Hard Day. Since then he’s gone from strength to strength, and his performance here somewhat evokes his role from 2017’s Bluebeard, another title in which the reality of the protagonists predicament is constantly brought into question. Similarly Bae Soo-bin and Cha Soo-yeon make the most of their screentime, while Jung Hae-kyun (Unstoppable, Missing You) and Jang Won-young (Missing Woman, No Mercy for the Rude) are suitably effective as the villagers who act as the instigators of the tragic events that unfold.
While it’s easy to understand the perspective of Jin-young being a first time director who’s bitten off more than he can chew with Me and Me, I also can’t help but feel that perhaps that’s also a cop out on my part for wanting a narrative that provided a satisfying answer at its conclusion. On reflection, I feel that Jin-young has successfully crafted exactly the type of movie he wanted to, and in some ways I was reminded of my personal favorite Korean movie, Song Il-gon’s 2004 thriller Spider Forest. Both productions share the approach of leaving out specific details in order to have the audience come to its own conclusions, and both feel like they speak to a part of the human condition that we wouldn’t otherwise pay much heed had we not been prompted to think about it. If that’s not the power of cinema, then what is?
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10
