Miss Lee leads two separate lives, but feels restless in both of them. Her public life starts each morning when she walks with crowds of her co-workers into the cavernous hall of a bank in downtown Seoul. Her work days are spent totaling figures, passing bundles of cash back and forth, and halfheartedly taking part in the playful banter of her colleagues. Seated at a slight remove her from her desk is Mr. Park, a man involved in similar work, who seems to take little notice of her. After work, she takes a bus and gets off at the National Cemetery (as the military guard posted at the main gate steals glances at her). She picks up groceries and goes home to her apartment.
Late at night, the door opens and Mr. Park walks in. The two live together, but have kept it a secret from their coworkers in order to avoid gossip. Their relationship is at times playful, at times contentious, and yet despite the noise they make together, Miss Lee feels restless and unfulfilled. The one true love of her life was killed while serving in the Vietnam War. He is buried in the cemetery across the street, and his absence still torments her.
Kim Soo-yong’s Night Journey is a cry of frustration at the stagnation of its era, and so it’s not surprising that it became a target for censors. Shot in 1973, it was rejected by authorities and languished in storage for close to four years before being released in a cut version in 1977. (The version available to us today would appear to be uncensored, but the director claims otherwise.) The society portrayed in the film comes across as both suffocating and impersonal, a place where men drink themselves into oblivion each night and women are racked with boredom.
Like the enchanting Mist (1967), one of the highlights of Kim Soo-yong’s filmography, Night Journey is adapted from a work by acclaimed 20th-century novelist Kim Seung-ok. The director creates a strikingly modernist aesthetic with freewheeling cinematography, discordant music and a plot that is guided by the shifting emotions of its female lead, rather than any conventional narrative structure. Actress Yoon Jeong-hee (who starred in both Mist and, more recently, Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry) brings a defiant energy and sensuality to her portrayal of a woman who seems extraordinary in many ways, but despite her best efforts is unable to shake off the stagnation of her environment. More than any other performance of the 1970s, Yoon’s character embodies the frustration and lost opportunities of ordinary people living under authoritarian rule.
Darcy Paquet