Time (***)
review by Jon
Waterman
Seh-hee thinks she’s in a declining relationship. Her
boyfriend Ji-woo hasn’t been as responsive as he used
to be and she’s wondering if he even finds her attractive
anymore. To test this theory, she asks him to imagine another
woman while in bed, and he complies. Thinking this is the proof
she needs that she’s boring to him, she sets out to sort
of nip and tuck the problem in the bud (or wherever else).
Seh-hee leaves Ji-woo one day, without warning or notification,
determined to get a new face through plastic surgery and start
over. He’s left distraught, wondering what happened and
what exactly went wrong. His friends take him out to help him
forget and to move on. Nothing seems to work until he meets
a new girl named See-hee that seems eerily familiar.
I really don’t understand why this guy would even want
the girl back. This movie would be great if it weren’t
for the insane woman. I’m sure there must be a way to
tone it down and still tell an effective story that deals with
many if not all of the same issues and themes. She’s
just so psychotic and irrationally jealous (even of herself
at times) that it gets to be extremely annoying. This is not
the same kind of hopeless romantic behavior you see in “Amélie.” I
know I certainly wouldn’t keep letting these people back
in that café. And I don’t think I’m giving
too much away by telling you that this new girl is her all
over again. Her new incarnation may have a different face,
but she’s still all kinds of crazy and I still wish he
would dump her stupid plastic face.
I think the movie would have been better if maybe they wouldn’t
have shown us that she went through the procedures. That takes
a lot of the fun out of the picture. “Is she or isn’t
she?” Well, we know. The movie gets a lot better later
on, after most of her antics die down. It’s just a matter
of making it that far. Oh, and speaking of procedures, you
squeamish types should know that director Ki-duk Kim (“3-Iron” and “Spring,
Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring”) gives you a
nice helping of actual plastic surgery clips.
The film is still good if you can somehow tolerate the grating
main character. The cinematography by Jong-moo Sung looks great.
They utilize some interesting and effective voyeuristic work.
The scenes and shots also do a wonderful job of showing the
desperation and despair of being alone. They also very subtly
gave the film a face-lift by varying the style in such a way
that it always felt like the same movie while still giving
different settings and sections their own identity.
Sometimes “Time” plays out like a soap opera,
and sometimes the metaphors are a little too obvious (I mean,
right at the start, She-hee drops a picture frame with her
photo and it cracks, while running into someone that just came
from the clinic with doors that bisect a giant face plastered
on them when opened). However, if you can hold out a little
while, it will get better. All the scenes with Ji-woo are wonderful
and the last half hour is riveting. I wish I could go in there
and cut it up to make the rest of the picture so beautiful.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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