At the Munich Film Festival, we met Feng Junhao again. Over the past two months, he has undoubtedly been loved by more and more audiences around the world.
In Cannes in May this year, before the premiere, Bong Joon-ho still worried that the style of "Parasite" was too "Korean" and might not be accepted by foreign audiences, and he wrote a letter specifically asking everyone not to spoil it. After the premiere, not only the audience was stunned, the judges unanimously approved, and the film critics also cheered that Palme d’Or is finally well deserved. After winning the Palme d’Or, the box office has also been stellar, and Korean films have received unprecedented attention in the world.
This Munich Film Festival specially planned Feng Junhao's retrospective, showing 8 works of his director, from 2000's feature film debut "Kidnapping a Dog at the Door" to this year's "Parasite".
The meeting with director Feng Junhao was arranged in the "black box" of the Gasteig Cultural Center in Munich. The distance between the director and the audience was very close, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We had the opportunity to mention a lot of his work and director skills. The problem. When the first audience asked a question, Feng Junhao on the stage also picked up his mobile phone and took a picture of the audience. Everyone laughed and was surprised that when we focused on him, we were also the director's focus. And the object of observation.
The complex and multi-faceted human nature is the most dramatic
Feng Junhao, who is a sociology major, has a nuanced observation of human nature. The tension in the movie comes from life. At a funeral, there may be people who can't help but laugh, or at a wedding, there may be people who are alone and unhappy. In life scenes, people may have many subtle emotions within ten seconds. He said that the "laughing and crying" characters in his films were not deliberately created, but merely captured and restored the complex emotions in life.
Different characters in "Parasite" also have different emotional levels. For example, as the father of a driver, his anger exploded at the end of the film. It was not due to a simple reason, but a variety of complicated feelings accumulated in the front. But his young son did not have such anger, but was very calm and peaceful.
When it comes to characterization, Feng Junhao is the least constrained to stereotypes. For example, his "Mother" broke the mother's usual positive image of gentleness and kindness, and described the dark side of mother's human nature. Bong Joon-ho's own mother saw this movie when it premiered, but in the past ten years, she has never discussed it with him.
"Smell" is a medium to express the boundary between rich and poor in "Parasite"
I asked Director Feng Junhao why most of the protagonists in his films are low-level people who are marginalized by society. He said that we have seen many stories in Hollywood movies where the protagonist opens up and the superhero completes the task easily, but these stories do not happen in real life. His movies are completely opposite to superhero movies. As the protagonists of the weak, they have to face many real and very difficult problems in their lives, and they must find ways to overcome them. Therefore, these little people without money, power, or status, the "weak" in people's eyes, are real and natural in the movie, with dramatic tension.
In "Parasite", the gap between rich and poor is the theater center of the movie. "Parasite" is the first time he described the houses and families of the rich in a movie. The depiction of "smell" appears in the context of the collision of the rich and the poor. In reality, the lives of the poor and the rich are naturally separated. Although there is no clear boundary, each has its own circle and scope of activities, and there is little overlap. In some life situations, such as tutoring, drivers, and housekeeping services, the rich and the poor will be in the same space. "Smell" describes the boundary between them. Describing smell in a movie is actually not easy, because it is invisible and silent. But he clearly wanted to show the element of smell, and the actors finally performed it perfectly.
Many directors will direct the actors to perform, and Bong Joon-ho likes to give the actors some freedom. He will be very precise in preparing the visual design of composition, lens movement, lighting, art design, etc., and create the script by himself. In one of his final edited movies, the scenes are often the same as the scenes he originally constructed in the script. Under the framework of his script, he will safely let the actors perform freely, such as letting them modify the dialogue of the characters to make it more natural, and the final result is often excellent.
When the inspiration strikes, you are ready to catch it
Everyone is very curious. Now many screenwriters are racking their brains to squeeze inspiration, and the works they write are still mediocre. Why is his script full of novel inspirations? As if everything happened spontaneously, inspiration kept coming out of his mind like this. (We often call it "talent")
He said that he also had no way to lock himself in a closed room to write a script. He needs an open space, such as a restaurant or a coffee shop. During the three cups of coffee a day, he would observe the people in the store and on the street, listen to their conversations, and immediately write down interesting stories in their lives.
When conceiving "Parasite", he remembered that it was on August 4, 2017, sitting in the car, and suddenly got inspired, and all of the second half of the movie was built up. Inspiration often comes unexpectedly. Always be prepared for the script, grab it when inspiration strikes, and jot down notes.
Success cannot be defined, just try to make a movie
Feng Junhao has no way to explain why several of his films were successful. He himself is also full of confusion. He was not completely sure of his work at the beginning, and the shooting process was full of uncertainty. The box office success was always a mystery, and he felt that he might just be lucky. After the editing of "Memories of Murder" was completed, investors saw that it was a bad film and immediately withdrew from it. However, after the film premiered, it turned out to be a success at the box office. Later, "Han River Monster" was filmed. Although the previous "Memories of Murder" performed well, the style was very different. Investors were full of doubts about a movie about monsters. Fortunately, a Japanese investor funded us to finish the film. , And then other investment talents have joined.
He did not anticipate the success of "Parasite" in Cannes. When he flew back to South Korea from Cannes, he saw more than a hundred reporters waiting at the airport. He thought they were waiting for an Olympic athlete or star. Starting from filming "The Kidnapping of a Dog at the Door" twenty years ago, his life has always been writing scripts, making movies, writing scripts, and making movies. There has been no change to this day. After the Palme d’Or awards, he and his colleagues on the crew drank and celebrated for a night. They woke up the next day and their lives hadn’t changed much. After getting on the plane, they began to conceive the script again.
Such a director who maintains his original aspirations and focuses on script and film creation, how can we not look forward to his next work?
Author: Xiaoyi (Book Cannes, Munich Special Correspondent)
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