re:mote voices

Title: This Charming Girl [Yeoja, Jeong-hye ]
Cast: Jeong-min Hwang, Ji-su Kim
Director: Yoon-ki Lee

The “charming girl” of the title lives a quiet life. Living in a flat by herself. Working in a postal company. Occasionally, and grudgingly, going out with her work colleagues. To some degree this makes for a sparse narrative – something that in Korean cinema is most event in the work of Kim-ki Duk. Although, the style and delivery of This Charming Girl isn’t as memorable as Kim’s work.

The story unfolds by degrees. The girl takes in a stray cat, has lunch with an ex-boyfriend, attends a funeral. Each even triggering brief flashbacks. These snippets of memory as under stated as the girl’s present. Such that the point is never really laid out on a plate for the viewer. In fact, the plot development is teased out, so that we are pretty far in before the pieces that clue us into what is going on fall into place.

The title of this film is an oddity, we don’t really get the impression that this girl is “charming”. With flashbacks to her mother’s death, to relationships broken, there is a melancholy, and there is something unfulfilled, missing in how she relates to those around her. The film kind of starts, continues, and ends, with a sense that it is lacking landmarks. To a degree, This Charming Girl is the model of subtlety and suggestion. On the other hand, I found it to be a little unremarkable, lacking any real impact, especially given what lies at the centre of the story.