As per the MIFF guide: “...an ambitious but beleaguered director [is] desperately trying to finish the movie – a black-and-white melodrama entitled ‘Cobweb’ – that he’s convinced is going to be his masterpiece. The project is rife with chaos: censors are interfering, bewildered actors and producers struggle to make sense of the rewritten ending, and everything else that seemingly can go wrong does.”
This is the brand new film from South Korean director Kim Jee-woon, and stars Song Kang-ho in his fifth collaboration with Kim. Song plays the director within the movie who is convinced and determined that his latest film will be nothing short of a masterpiece. Whilst most Western audiences would know Kim Jee-woon from his very violent thrillers like “I Saw The Devil” and “A Bittersweet Life”, “Cobweb” sees him play in the genre of comedy once again. Personally, I believe that this is a genre that Kim really likes a lot, particularly because he started his career making comedies before he turned to the horror and thriller films that he is most known for. I must admit that I feel a little sorry for Kim, because lately he seems to have been left behind by his cinematic comrades Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, who both have found large and continued international success. Kim is just as talented as these other two directors, (all three of them are also good friends), but for whatever reason, Kim's international fame has started to wane and his films are now barely seen outside of South Korea. I'm not sure why this is, because he is still an unbelievable talent and the films he has been making recently are of a high quality, maybe it is just that Kim is happy enough being a big director in his home country and international success is no longer the carrot it once was. Anyway, “Cobweb” is another very entertaining and funny film from this very talented director.
The film opens with Song's character, director Kim, having intense nightmares about his new film “Cobweb” which he has just finished shooting. He wakes full of ideas, and suddenly believes that if he could just re-shoot certain scenes in the film, he could turn it into a masterpiece. The only problem is he has to re-group his cast (who have moved on to other projects) and get everything shot within two days before all the sets are torn down and destroyed. Not only that, he needs to get censorship approval for the new scenes he has written before he can shoot a frame of film. Comedy ensues.
This is actually a very, very funny film, but it is a tad overlong. If it had been tightened by about 15 to 20 minutes, I think it would've benefited the film greatly as Kim Jee-woon struggles to keep the laughs going for such an extended time. Song Kang-ho proves once again just how brilliant an actor he truly is, and how big his range is. He is fantastic playing the in-over-his-head director, and is the key to most of the laughs in the film. While he is no doubt a fantastic dramatic actor too, personally I believe Song shines his brightest when he makes comedies. I will admit that there are a couple of scenes when he may go a little too broad and over-the-top, (particularly the ones when he is forced to act in his own movie when the original actor passes out from drinking too much), but really this is a part of the fun of “Cobweb”. It is not a film to be taken too seriously, and both Kim Jee-woon and Song Kang-ho understand exactly the type of film they are making, and just have fun with it. The film takes place in the 1970's so Song is dressed in some very funny stylings from that decade which also add to the laughs too.
Kim Jee-woon's films always look amazing, and “Cobweb” is no exception; in fact I really love the look of this film a lot because the majority is shot on sound stages where the artifice of filmmaking is totally embraced. It gives the film a hyper-stylised look, where cinematographer Kim Ji-yong (who just came of lensing Park Chan-wook's “Decision to Leave” prior to this) is able to use very dramatic and unrealistic lighting to great effect. All of the “back of stage” scenes are presented in colour, but when we are witness to the actual shooting of scenes of the film-within-a-film, “Cobweb”, these scenes are in stark black and white. While I do like these black and white scenes a lot, I really wish that they could have been shot on real black and white film, because they do have a very digital appearance which does not suit the time period the film is set in.
In terms of the comedy, it isn't what I would ever call subtle. This is broad, in-your-face laughs, but thankfully it is actually quite funny. It is a very funny satire on filmmaking and the behind the scenes dramas that can take place on set. At times it almost borders on slapstick or even a screwball comedy, it is that silly. Kim Jee-woon finds laughs in seeing Song's director character attempting to get censorship approval, finding access to an actress who has moved back to shooting her television commitments, being abused by film critics who accuse him of being a hack, dealing with actors who are either drunk or distracted by love affairs with other actors on set, to him trying to dodge his producer who has explicitly told him not to shot the extra scenes. Like I said earlier, it is all very funny, particularly as the stakes get higher the more time is running out for them to finish the picture.
One thing that I got a big kick out of was the fact that the film director Kim thinks will be his masterpiece, was clearly based on Kim Ki-young's seminal thriller “The Housemaid” (from 1960) although a much cheesier version of it. The staircase, the shots from outside looking into the room, the rain, the crazy woman carrying the knife; it is all from “The Housemaid”, a film that I absolutely adore. The brilliant thing is, at the end of the film we get to see the finale of “Cobweb”, the film-within-a-film, uninterrupted, to see once and for all if director Kim is the hack the critics claim him to be, or if he has indeed created the masterpiece he thinks. The look on Song Kang-ho's face when he has his answer is absolutely perfect too.
Overall, I really enjoyed Kim Jee-woon's latest film, “Cobweb”, as did the majority of the audience I saw it with. It is overlong, but for the most part Kim has created a very silly, over-the-top satire of the filmmaking process and the perils that can lie within. Technically, the film is extremely well made, and look gorgeous, as Kim is able to really embrace the artifice of cinema, as it makes perfect sense to do so in the story that is being told here. Because of this “Cobweb” has a very stylised appearance and has quite an impressive, and big old-style score attached to it (think Bernard Herrmann) that is just outstanding. Coupled with Song Kang-ho's very funny portrayal of a director struggling to finish his movie without compromises, and you have a great night out at the movies. “Cobweb” is a whole lot of fun!
3.5 Stars.
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