Night Fishing (Park Chan-Wook, 2011)

Narrative Structure

By a river in the woods, a man carrying a fishing bag sets up his fishing equipment as he leisurely waits for a fish to take the bait. After hours of waiting, catching barely any fish, his rod begins to liven up as something big grapples at the end of it. Tackling it to the river bank, he finds that rather than a fish, he has accidentally caught a woman. In shock, he trips up on his rod and becomes entangled with her before suddenly the woman grabs him, causing him to faint. After waking up, the woman is now wearing the mans clothes whilst he wears the white funeral dress that she previously wore and begins to call him “Daddy”. A flashback occurs in which the audience sees a ritual which shows the picture of the same man at what appears to be a funeral for him and the same girl who is engaging with several ritual activities.

Editing

Quick and sharp paced editing as the rod begins to move as the fisherman frantically attempts to haul his catch in and then when the woman is speaking with him and the rods begin to come alive as she talks, the cutting to a nd from her and the rods create a sense of fear and dread for the man as he is in an unfamiliar situation.

Sound

The diegetic music performance at the beginning seems very unrelated to the plot of the film but if you look past the fact that it appears just like a music video there could be a deeper meaning. Not only are they dressed all in black but the actual singing could foreshadow the reveal that the fisherman is dead as singing is typically heard during funerals which we see later on.

Mise-en-scene

The setting of the film by a river gives the film a dark and grim aesthetic whilst the music at the beginning of the film that seemed almost irrelevant to the story could link to the mans own apparent death. The main idea around this film seems to be death as the girl is first presumed to be dead and then its revealed that somehow the man is dead as we watch his funeral. The costumes that the band where are black and gloomy that seems to suggest that the man could in fact already be dead.

Contexts of Film

The film was shot entirely on an Apple iPhone 4 with some editing in post production that would help to give the film more vibrant aesthetics. It was handheld across the film which meant that the visuals appeared more realistic and personal to the man who was experiencing these events. The iPhone also gives the film a grainy aesthetic that suggests to the viewer that this will be a horror film without any prior knowledge.

The film represents a culture in South Korea and indeed other places in the world that the living have the ability to speak to the dead through ritual.

Meaning and Response

There seems to be a binary opposition of life and death throughout the film. The man represents death whilst the woman who the audience first presumes to be dead is representative of life as she attempts to talk and comfort the dead fisherman. There is also a binary opposite of colour as the film begins in colour before switching to a black and white aesthetic whilst the fisherman fishes and is then contrasted by the vibrant colours at the end when a ceremony is taking place.

The enigma of the film is how did the man die. Are we to assume that the man died whilst fishing which is why the woman and the audience see him in that form or is there another reason that might have caused his death?