Jang Kun-jae on Korean drama 'A Midsummer's Fantasia'
“My main concern was that I wanted to touch on the realism I had: What is realistic? What is realism? I’m looking for my way and another way when it comes to realism.” Korean independent filmmaker Jang Kun-jae is discussing the basis of his latest human drama, A Midsummer’s Fantasia.
The film screens in the UK this week as part of the 10th London Korean Film Festival, an event that celebrates its 10th year by hailing Korea’s most talented and diverse filmmakers. Two of Jang’s films are screening at the festival as part of the Emerging Director section: Sleepless Night (2012) and A Midsummer’s Fantasia (2014).
Jang’s latest film – which follows Sleepless Night and his 2009 drama Eighteen – is another human portrayal of the search for the “Korean dream.” The film sees an aspiring filmmaker who travels to Japan in search of a new project. Meeting an actress along the way, both bond with the prospect of something new and exciting coming their way. “It was very important for me to make it as natural as possible”, says Jang. “Methodology comes very naturally to me, and I think, on this film, I evolved as a filmmaker because the most important element of this film is emotion.”
Despite the romantic elements that wave through many of Jang’s projects, the filmmaker asserts that this is by far an accident. “I don’t particularly like romantic films, but it just so happens that all of my feature films are romantic so, for me, that is a bit strange”, he laughs. “I like human dramas. In the future, I may make a thriller or a comedy but I’m not sure. I’m very interested in the Korean generation and its social problems.”
Korean actors Hyeong-gook Im and Sae-byeok Kim star alongside Japanese actor Ryo Iwase in A Midsummer’s Fantasia. Jang was determined to create a strong and naturalistic cast while staying true to the Japanese setting of Gojo – a small town on the South East coast of Japan. “When I wrote the script, I felt that the city was suited for a middle-aged man, but I wanted a male much younger to play the protagonist role,” recounts Jang. “You have to look natural without trying to look natural, and these actors knew what they had to do.”
Despite the critical acclaim that Jang has received worldwide – and the dubious amounts of attention received on the festival front – his films have never fallen under the mainstream category. “My life as an independent filmmaker is hard: the problem is always money.” He adds, “An important topic in my life will always to be looking for happiness whilst working on my projects. Although the films that I have made haven’t made much income, I got what I wanted in terms of the message.”
Like Eighteen and Sleepless Night, A Midsummer’s Fantasia explores the developing relationship between aspiring and enthusiastic twenty-something couples. Attention to detail is a fundamentality for Jang as well as the analysis of compassion, mortality and the inconsistency of human nature. “I want my films to contain how I see life”, he says. “You have good days and bad days in which they coexist: like different days, my thoughts are always changing.” However, despite his unique eye and unconventional subject matters, Jang asserts that he is first and foremost a film fanatic. “All the films that I’ve made so far I feel I’ve made as a cinephile – I feel that I haven’t even made a first step as a director, I really feel that.”
Jang has cultivated into one of Korea’s most diverse and compelling contemporary filmmakers. A Midsummer’s Fantasia is a perfect example of how everyday life is not always what you see on the silver screen. “I don’t think that I have the ability to show the audience that ‘this is what the world is like; this is what it’s about.’ I don’t want to give them a happy ending or unhappy ending.”
Despite having only three feature films under his belt, Jang’s talent as a filmmaker and storyteller is already helmed as some of the best to come out of contemporary Korean cinema in later years. “I work as a producer, director, editor, writer and I can’t separate those: I’m not a director, I’m a filmmaking; to me, it feels handmade.