Divided into three chapters, From You is a film that keeps its viewers in a perennial state of suspense. Who’s the fashion design student in the first episode, and why does she have to travel to her distant hometown just to use a sewing machine? What’s the relationship between her and the actor at the centre of the second segment, as they seem to share a bed but also have relatives in common? How do the filmmaker and his thespian mother, the protagonists of the final part, come into play? And what exactly are all those black balls of smoke which punctuate each chapter?
There’s nothing wrong with shaping enigmatic multi-linear narratives which require viewers to join some far-flung dots and do some heavy logical lifting. The problem with Shin Dong-min’s second feature is that the guessing is all there is. Beyond the morsels of information the viewer gets to tease out from the characters’ monotonous conversations – a frayed marriage here, an unpaid loan there, and a gag about lottery tickets which runs across the different episodes – we never get around to understand more about the characters and their struggles to establish their artistic credentials.
Still, Shin’s monochrome palette and stylised framing – it’s all about static medium shots of people talking or thinking about something – has somehow found favour at the Jeonju International Film Festival, where From You snagged the Korean Competition Grand Prize. It’s a repeat for Shin, who won the same award in 2020 with his directorial debut Mom’s Song, which then appeared at several other domestic festivals before disappearing from view. Given its more polished visual qualities and its faint nod to Hong Sang-soo’s interlocked narratives, From You might fare better – but perhaps only just.
The first two chapters of From You are set in Seoul. The film begins with Min-ju (Kang Min-ju), a fashion design student whose plans to finish her final project are thrown into disarray when her sewing machine breaks down. After finding the school workshop closed for the weekend, Min-ju is forced to return to her hometown to use the machine she left at her mother’s place – a meeting which leads to some chit-chat about past family feuds and a row at the garbage dump.
Min-ju is again there at the beginning of the second chapter, engaged in an intimate conversation with Seung-joo (Lee Kum-ju) in bed. Seung-joo is just starting out as an actress, and is charisma personified: through small physical gestures and verbal flattery, she charms acquaintances and admirers alike. She then visits her uncle (Moon Ho-jun) and cancer-stricken aunt (Ann Min-young), and they talk about some painful family anecdotes which hark back to the first chapter.
Shin himself appears in the final part, in which he plays a filmmaker visiting his hometown with his mother (veteran actor Kim Hye-jeong). They are seen wandering around, visiting their dilapidated ancestral homes and childhood haunts and lamenting about what things used to be like decades ago. As it turns out, they are actually in town for something else, as becomes apparent when they visit the local cinema and walk into a sparsely attended screening. This turns out to the “film” comprising the first two chapters.
Not that the viewer can be entirely sure: the projected “film” is never seen, its presence made palpable only through the answers Shin and Kim (who plays Min-ju’s mom) give during an on-screen Q&A, in an exchange that hardly yields anything revelatory or heart-rending. Therein lies the problem with From You: with its screen time spread thin across three sets of characters and their struggles in life and art, all the characters remain sketchy and their passage merely superficial. What looks cleverly meta on paper becomes merely meh – a rightful shame, given the potential of Lee Jin-wook’s pristine black-and-white camerawork and Oh Jung-woong’s incidental score.
Director, screenwriter, editor: Shin Dong-min
Cast: Kang Min-ju, Lee Kum-ju, Kim Hye-jeong, Shin Dong-min
Producer: Kang Min-ju
Director of photography: Lee Jin-wook
Music composer: Oh Jung-woong
Sound designer: Lee Joo-hwan
Production company: Shin Dong-min, presented by Dangsin
Venue: Jeonju International Film Festival (Korean Competition)
In Korean
102 minutes
