What are dreams made of?

Dreams show what we desire, sometimes in the strangest ways, says Lee Kwang-kuk.

“Dreams are like a list of wishes we have,” he said. “Wishes often transform and manifest themselves (into dreams). When we look deeply into them, we might be able to approach something that we desire deep inside, even without sensing it.”
 
The 40-year-old is not Freud, Descartes or a dream expert.

He is a film director who has crafted a comedic flick about dreams and their interpretations.

“A Matter of Interpretation,” released in local theaters last month, is a whimsical tale inspired by the experiences of his father, who has been ill for several years, Lee said in an interview with The Korea Herald last Wednesday in Seoul.

“My father continuously drifted between dreams and reality,” said Lee. “He struggled a lot, and while I was witnessing his agony, I began to wonder what it was about dreams that makes people act in certain ways.”

“I wanted to explore the relations between dreams and reality,” he said.

In his 98-minute film, a dream leads to reality or spirals into a series of other dreams. The line between dreams and reality blurs, leaving viewers confused and curious.

“That’s the personality of this film,” said the director. “Just as dreams and reality freely intermingle, the story flows into the next story.”

“Sometimes, when we wake up from our dreams, the afterimages tend to stay with us ― like a state of fantasy,” said Lee, emphasizing that this feeling of ambiguity and dreamlike illusion was something he wanted to portray in the film.

This dreamy film may be a dream come true for Lee, whose sophomore feature has already won critical acclaim in film festival circuits. The film recently won the Inalco Jury’s Award at the International Festival of Asia Cinema Vesoul, based in France. The film premiered at last year’s Busan International Film Festival and was invited to the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands, before being released in local theaters in February.

Before making his feature debut in 2011 with “Romance Joe” ― which won the Citizen Critics’ Award at BIFF that year ― Lee served as assistant director for acclaimed auteur Hong Sang-soo in four of his films, including “Woman on the Beach” (2006) and “Hahaha” (2010).

He admits that his film style has been influenced by Hong in many ways. “I learned from Hong that sometimes it is the trivial, familiar topics that create great stories,” said Lee.

Reflecting on his lessons from Hong, “A Matter of Interpretation” is a story of ordinary characters, peppered with quirky twists.

A lead actress of a play without an audience, her boyfriend who struggles to make ends meet, a detective who can interpret dreams and his ill sister are the main characters in the film, which seesaws between dreams and reality.

The characters’ circumstances are grim at best. Yet Lee manages to make the film light, witty and somewhat enchanting by the end.

“I think it is my nature,” said Lee. “I take gloomy topics and observe them from one step back, rather than directly tackling them. In doing so, comedy emerges, and so do other viewpoints.”

“Ultimately, the foundation of comedy is tragedy,” said Lee, who wants to make a superb comedy in the future. “Comedy starts with something tragic, and when some time passes and distance grows, it comes to have comedic appeal and becomes a good story.” 

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)

Up & Coming is a series of interviews with emerging artists in various fields of arts and entertainment. ― Ed.