Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors
Oh! Soo-jung
credits:
Director: Hong Sang-sooProducer: Lee Yoo-jin
Writer: Hong Sang-soo
Cast: Lee Eun-joo, Jung Bo-seok, Moon Sung-keun
South Korea 2000 | 126 mins | 35mm | Korean w/E.S.
The cinematic trend of older man/younger woman fetish fantasies is parodied and exposed in Hong’s dryly engaging third film. JULES AND JIM filtered through Seoul and soju, VIRGIN recalls the playful feel of early Rohmer or Truffaut, complete with impressive black-and-white lensing and a spirited disregard for narrative convention. Soo-Jung is an attractive television writer “torn” between two men: her alternately downtrodden or overbearing—but always married—boss Young-Soo, and his friend Jae-Hoon, a wealthy gallery owner. First Jae-Hoon, then Soo-Jung retell their eventual courtship. His recollections remain peppered with references to his fancy sports car; hers are—needless to say—quite different. Both versions, though, involve a blur of increasingly drunken dinners, dates and fateful meetings. Proving that anywhere alcohol goes, love follows (or is that the other way around), VIRGIN (named after a Marcel Duchamp work) uncorks lines like “How about if I be your girlfriend only when you drink?” to cynically unveil the truth and remarkable confusi on behind love and desire.
—Jason Sanders
* Hong Sang-soo in person at 03.21 screening
