[K-Movie Night] The Table
by Dramaddictally
Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.
Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!
Movie Review
Talented female leads are my favorite all year round, but with International Women’s Day in March, it’s fun to stream films that gather a bunch of that talent together (see also: Hellcats and Sunny). This month’s pick, The Table, lines up the likes of Han Ye-ri, Jung Yumi, Im Soo-jung, and Jung Eun-chae in an omnibus format that seems to be a favored style of screenwriter/director Kim Jong-kwan (who also directed Shades of the Heart and Josée).
Screening at the Busan International Film Festival in 2016, with a theatrical release the following year, the slice-of-life drama didn’t make huge numbers at the box office, but called my attention for its subdued cover image, featuring the lovely faces of all the leading ladies. Upon examination, it seemed like just the little film we needed right now to generate some good conversation and reflection.
Told in a series of four vignettes, the thread holding all the scenes together is the eponymous table. We open in a café as a woman prepares for the day, wiping down the table by the window and setting out a glass of flowers. Here, before the café’s close, four conversations will occur. Each dialogue has only two participants, nameless and wanting something from the other.
The first conversation is between a woman (Jung Yumi) and the man she dated in college (Jung Joon-won) before she was famous. But now, she’s so well known that she’s wearing sunglasses and a mask, and gets asked for an autograph the minute she removes them. In fact, as we’ll see through the scene, her fame is really the only reason her former friend wants to see her.
In this first vignette, the film establishes its format, which is to drop us into an interaction that’s already established. Through dialogue — but especially through the actors’ expressions and gestures — we have to decipher exactly what’s happening. How do these two know each other? What happened in the past? Why are they here? And what is it that each one wants that’s building up the tension right now?
Because that’s the thing we’ll see over and over: how conflict is revved up without context. And the director does an amazing job of catching the actors’ minute emotions so we can fill in the blanks based on our own experiences. Through the process of having to figure out what’s going on, the audience begins to inject themselves into the scenes. And I found that in each conversation, I identified with only one of the people at the table.
With the famous woman and her long-ago ex, the dynamic is driven by him asking questions about her features and her fame. All is superficial, based on an image, while he ignores the person that’s sitting right there in front of him. He begins to tell her about all the rumors he’s heard about her, wanting to know which are true (was she really beaten up by her boyfriend for cheating? Did she really have an abortion?).
As he goes on, she becomes more uncomfortable. The tension increases, though she hardly says a thing. What I first read as nerves on his part — getting to see her after so long — finally reveals itself as arrogance when it becomes clear he’s creating some rumors of his own. He wants a photo with her, so he can prove the stories he tells his coworkers about how they used to date. She allows it, but soon says she has to go, as the mood of their interaction has tanked.
This one left me feeling sad for her, angry at him, and thinking about how brilliant the writing is — which continues in each subsequent vignette. As I puzzled out their past, I had to update my reading of each character quickly, as each new line or look revealed a piece of information as a clue. With roughly twenty minutes to each scene, that’s not much time to have such an investment from the audience with such a real emotional response. It’s the art of the short film, done very well, which gains strength by having a few of them strung together.
The second conversation involves another woman (Jung Eun-chae) and man (Jeon Sung-woo), but in an altogether different dynamic. She’s anxious and tense, hardly able to look at him, throwing out a line and then directing her gaze out the window. He, on the other hand, is relaxed and leaning forward, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort.
As they talk, we learn that they had a few nights together, and then he left the country to go touring Europe and India without a word. It’s been months with no contact and now they’re at the table, at his request. Again, nothing is given to us up front, but morsels of information are meted out. At one point, she hands him a watch, saying only, “You left this.” That’s our cue to the nature of their relationship before he took off, and to why she’s acting hurt and reluctant.
The tension here is through tight shots of their faces that never pulls back into a two-shot until halfway through. We’ve already become accustomed to the spatial distance of the table, so we can still imagine the full frame, but the closeups — which cut off the edges of their heads — create intensity as we move between their reactions. When she tells him she’s working on a novel, he wants to know if he’s in it — smiling at the prospect. She retorts, “It’s a novel not a diary. Why would you be in it?” But then he asks, “So, am I in your diary?”
His smiling face cutting to her defensive posture, within the context of those lines, does all the work of putting me on edge about what his intentions are. Is this a manipulative flirtation to get close to her again? Or is he interested in getting to know her for real? We find out the answer to that through the uncomfortable unfolding. And I surprised myself by being wrong — which is because I was seeing it from her perspective.
The third conversation is between two women. The younger one (Han Ye-ri) is asking the older one (Kim Hye-ok) to play her mother at her upcoming wedding. What we have on our hands is a conversation between two hustlers — one who’s used to scheming men for money and the other who’s used to playing parts for a cut of that money.
As they discuss the details of the event, it’s revealed that the one getting married is actually in love this time. It’s not a scam, according to her, and he doesn’t even have any money. This moves the heart of the older woman, who gives a rendition of her spiel for the wedding, where she’ll say lovely things about her “daughter.” But this makes the younger one look down and tense up. Is it the content that bothers her? Or the sincerity?
The final vignette takes place at night, just before the café closes. A woman (Im Soo-jung) is outside smoking while a man (Yeon Woo-jin) awaits her at the table. She looks through the window at him and smiles. He smiles back but when she turns away, the look that overtakes his face is one of disgust. Without a word, we can see these two are in some kind of long-term relationship, or have been, and this is what’s left of it.
Inside, sitting across from each other at the table, our suspicion is confirmed. They are exes, who know each other well, but she’s on her way to marrying someone else now. Here, he’s standoffish and she’s baiting. “Say the word and I’ll come back,” she tells him with big eyes and a smile. But he says he can’t handle her lifestyle. And the implication is that he’s the one who broke it off — not because he didn’t want her — but because he was hurt.
What is her lifestyle? Well, she’s asking him to have an affair, at the very least up until the wedding. His look says he’d love to say yes, but knows where it will lead for him. And she continues on with trying to convince him, taking it as a rejection worthy of tears when he doesn’t want to go along. Each of their hangups is clear precisely because the pain is real on both sides, making for an unsettling finish.
The Table offers quiet moments between pairs that spark big emotions and reflection. As someone who generally dislikes omnibus features, this one works for me because it’s really a series of magnificently done shorts. Once we understand the setup, the investment becomes deeper with each new dialogue. And I left with an overall sense of something meaningful being said about us humans and our often-hurtful relationships.
Join us in April for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Mood of the Day (2016) and posting the review during the last week of the month.
Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got 3 weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.
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