Bam gua nat (2008)

English title: Night and Day.

A Korean man, spending some time in Paris because of problems with the law in his country, makes the acquaintance of two women. He covets the younger one and is coveted by the other.

IMDb classifies this as "drama", which is hard to accept. The film's absurdities force one to view it as comedy. To begin with, the protagonist describes himself as a painter, but his interests, conversation, and even his activities while in France are hardly artistic. Prejudiced though that may sound, I will say that even his manners are not those of people of an artistic background. His alleged paintings are a joke (he paints clouds, in a very uncreative way). The plot consists of his straits in a foreign country, and the pursuit of his sexual needs regardless of an unpromising future for any lasting relationship, given his present situation and also that he is married. The entirety of the film consists of observing this simpleton wandering about; the second-in-importance character is a young "egoist" whom he leads into an arguably unfortunate condition, and the moral here might be said to be: egoism is abominable, but one can't have enough of it. Upon his return to Korea, he resumes a life that is peaceful on the surface, but is haunted by weird dreams. The film does not care to tell us how he manages to make a living out of painting clouds; in fact there is a lot the film does not tell us, and if it does not tell us it is because it does not know it, or rather there is nothing to know.

Rating: 40