And so my latest Netflix experience in the privacy of my own living room was Sang-soo Hong's Woman Is the Future of Man, a South Korean film from 2004. It's funny to see Martin Scorsese introducing this film on the DVD--a director whose last project, the Oscar-winning The Departed, was a bloated rip-off of Infernal Affairs, a superior Hong Kong crime drama. His films couldn't be more different from Hong's. But if Marty likes it...
Woman Is the Future of Man is the story of three 30-something acquaintances (two men and a woman) who at one point were friends and lovers but now, in the words of Borat, not so much. The film plays out with almost no cinematic interference. The camera is often stationary and people enter and exit these long, still shots with saint-like patience. It's so effective that at one point, early in the film, a rare, slow camera pan to the right is enough to induce vertigo.
In this meticulous character study we learn of the men's callowness and the redemptive, nurturing power of the woman who accepts them for what they are while never falling completely victim to their charms--or lack thereof. However, despite the lingering gaze of the camera these characters aren't nuanced, they're types. We're allowed to glimpse them as we pass by but our emotional engagement with them is appropriately shallow. Despite their chatter and frank sexual encounters they don't connect with each other--so why should we form any lasting attachment? That unsatisfying taste at the film's end is as cultivated and appropriate as it is unfortunate. Who was it that said we don't grow up, we just grow older?
The film's title, whether it's intended to be humorous or profound, is essentially meaningless. The men in this story are so insubstantial that for the perpetuation of the human species--let's hope our eggs are in the women's basket.
