A Day Off: An Off Day

Watching Lee Man-hui's late-'60s melodrama, you get the feeling that the director was a big fan of L'Avventura, La Notte, and the other great existential romances of the decade. Like those two Antonioni films too, A Day Off is beautifully shot in black-and-white and involves characters futilely searching for a deeper meaning in life. (Good luck, right?) This time around however one major practical concern is also at play: One of the film's two leading ladies, Ji-yeon (Jeon Ji-yeon) is six months pregnant and needs to get an abortion. (Even the doctor thinks she's unwise to carry to term, people!) Unfortunately for her, both she and her shady boyfriend (Shin Sung-il) are damn flat broke.

And so, a good chunk of A Day Off is spent following the unlucky love of her life as he attempts to scrape together the necessary funds from a ladies' man, a drunk academic, and a chubby guy who really likes to take baths. But where the movie gets especially interesting for me is when he goes on a bender with a different woman, an equally down-on-her-luck Seoul-mate who wants to drink this particular Sunday — hell, every Sunday — into oblivion. As these two souses careen from one drinking hole to the next, A Day Off begins to feel both more real and more surreal — capturing the recklessness, giddiness, and danger of getting blind stinking drunk with someone who can match you drink for drink. How's it all end?

Well, the censors banned it for being too depressing back in the day despite a coda that's like a little poem to "being". Is life a flower growing in the crack of a city sidewalk? This poetic flick wants to believe so.