American critic falls for indie K-films

Darcy Paquet launches Wildflowser Film Awards

The local film industry has been on a roll recently.

The shooting for the Hollywood blockbuster “Avengers: The Age of Ultron” is still underway in Korea, suggesting that the country and its capital city is an attractive location for international moviemakers.

A number of Seoul-based directors, including Bong Jun-ho and Lee Chang-dong, have risen to global recognition and fame, winning acclaimed international film awards. Bong’s “Snowpiercer” will be released in U.S. theaters this summer.

Not as visible as the success of commercial films, Seoul also has seen its independent film industry booming over recent years.

At its forefront is Darcy Paquet, 42, an American film critic, who has organized a special award designated for low-budget independent films.

“It’s weird for foreigner to start a ceremony like this, but I’m not trying to set it up as a foreigner or form foreigners’ perspective,” he said during an interview with The Korea Times.

According to Paquet, Korea really has two different industries ― commercial, and independent and low budget films.

“There’s almost nothing in between. Films are being made in a different environment, being released in a different way, and I just thought we shouldn’t just feel sorry for those because the situation for directors is hard to get a lot of attention but we should celebrate the fact that they’re making good films,” he said.

The first Wildflower Film Awards for independent movies, produced on less than a 1 billion won budget, was hosted on April 1, at Literature House Seoul in the capital.

The Best Film Award went to the black-and-white drama “Jiseul.” The Best Director Award went to Lee Don-gu for “Fatal”; and idol performer-turned actor Lee Jun of MBLAQ was given the Best New Actor Award.

Last year there were some 60 independent feature films and 20 documentaries released in theaters, Paquet said.

“It is very easy to fall into them, because in some ways they are much more creative and unpredictable than mainstream films,” he added.

Confessing that he often shed tears while watching movies, the Massachusetts-native said that “Christmas In August,” released in 1998, was the first Korean movie that he really liked. So much so he even went online to search for more information and reviews for the movie, but he couldn’t find any.

What is unique about Korean films in general, he says, is its storytelling style. “It is more focused on character, plus plot. It spends more time in building characters allowing audiences to get to know the characters than they do in Hollywood films.”

He added there’s a lot of irony in Hollywood films that you don’t find in Korean films. “In Korean films when characters get angry, they bristle out directly and when they are sad, they cry. In American romantic comedies people are much less likely to say what’s on their mind. They are making jokes and not really talking about their emotions directly.”

Since 1999, he has been running an English-language website for Korean films (Koreanfilm.org), writing reviews as a freelance writer for its website as well as a number of other international publications such as Variety.

He also translated a number of Korean movies including “Memories of Murder” and received the Korea Film Reporters Association Award for his contributions in introducing Korean cinema to the world at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2010.

Asked upon the recent co-production efforts between Korea and other countries, he talked about CJ E&M’s recent production of “Wedding Invitation” as a successful example. “The director was Korean but all of the cast were Chinese. That was set and shot in China. It looks completely like a Chinese film. You wouldn’t guess that Korea has any involvement in the film. Although it didn’t do well in Korea, it earned tons of money in China, like 30 million US dollars. I think it was a very valuable experience for people who made it.”

However, to further develop Korean cinema problems still remain. The first is the hostile environment for writers, he said.

“It is very difficult to make a living if you only write screenplays and if you don’t direct, because the pay is very low. But writing and directing are two very different skills,” he added.

Paquet deplores the fact that since TV drama industry pays well, so many talented writers go to TV. “They become famous as drama writers and make a lot of money, while screenwriters in the film industry are really struggling.”

“If Korea had a large group of writers, who are well-paid and could really focus their energy on screen writing, they would get more interesting stories and the industry would be more successful.”

Also, he said, in Europe, a lot of government money goes to art house movies that are not low-budget. For a budget of $5 million or $10 million movies, in the Korean system, it is really hard to make those movies.

“Korea puts a lot of money into supporting the film industry, but they usually don’t pick films and give them money directly. They’ll put their money into a fund that invests in films, but those investment funds they are looking to turn a profit, they are not trying to just finance artistically worthy films.”

“Even directors like Lee Chang-dong, highly respected abroad and whose movies always go to Cannes and win awards, it is very difficult for him to make films in Korea as people say they would not make money.” By Park Jin-hai, The Korea Times