Turning Gate (2002, Hong Sang-soo) (Patreon)

76/100

Third viewing, last seen 2003. This was the film that got me excited about Hong (I'd been underwhelmed by Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, didn't catch up with his first two until the following year), and to my mind it's still his quintessential work, even if I slightly prefer Right Now, Wrong Then (practically a remake of Turning Gate, except with the same woman/scenario both times) and In Front of Your Face (great but atypical). The bifurcated narrative functions as more than a gimmick here, with Kyung-soo's second awkward romance continually informed by the frustrations he experienced in his first; asking Sun-young "Do you like my moves?" while fucking her is funny/mortifying even stripped of context, but becomes more meaningful when you recall that Myung-suk had told him, in more or less the same position, "You could please any woman if you do this." And I'm struck once again by Hong's now-largely-dormant knack for composition—the 35mm camera certainly helps make Turning Gate look orders of magnitude better than his recent efforts, but he also just clearly cared a whole lot more back then about visual dynamism and fluency. (I'd wager that there are more distinct locations in this film than in his last four features put together, every one of them ideally chosen and framed.) Cast is uniformly terrific, and I'm retroactively very surprised that he's never used Chu Sang-mi again, especially given his shift to female protagonists; the way Sun-young repeatedly mock-chides Kyung-soo for not paying attention to her ("You're really into that book"; "You're so absorbed in it") and then instantly rejects his invitation to join him in the bar cracks me up every damn time, until I clock her thoughtful gaze as she watches the poor bewildered guy go off alone (all of which makes sense once their backstory emerges). "Favorite" and "best" don't always correspond, and I think this might be his best film. 

Never formally reviewed it two decades ago, as it was never released in the U.S. But I did file a report to the nerd chat group right after my first screening (at NYFF '02), and that'll serve well as an outro: 

> I think I really liked Turning Gate [...]

I know I really liked Turning Gate. Zach makes some good observations, and I agree with his thoughts for the most part, but I'll add one notion of my own. As I was telling Le Chuck afterwards, for me the film's thematic keystone can be found in the scene where Kyung-soo gets caught staring at the woman at the adjacent table and makes a feeble attempt to pretend that he was actually interested in a picture located on the wall behind her. The way that he persists in this charade long after it's clear that nobody's buying it—even corralling a waiter to ask where he can find another picture like it—speaks volumes not only about his character but about the very human tendency to compound mistakes in the interest of avoiding embarrassment. How many of us have remained in relationships that were clearly not working, or pursued relationships that were clearly not going to happen, simply because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we misinterpreted somebody's intentions or desires—or, worse, misinterpreted our own? The number of ways in which Hong touches upon this idea throughout the film, placing his protagonist on both sides of the equation, is quite remarkable. Wish I could see it again, but unfortunately I've got The Ring opposite tomorrow night's screening.

(I did see it again, but not until a year later when a complete Hong retro came to town.)

ANAL-RETENTIVE TITLE CORNER: It's unclear to me where the alternative English-language title On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate came from—the Korean title reportedly translates as Discovery of Life, and the film was called simply Turning Gate at both TIFF and NYFF. And my DVD* says Turning Gate as well. So I'm sticking with that for now, though I reserve the right to change my mind if Criterion or some equivalent releases it with the Occasion extension. 

* As is often ironically the case, I didn't actually watch my DVD, as there's a far superior transfer out there. It's mostly just for impressing fellow cinephiles who browse my shelves.