A Day Off
Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade: The 1960s
September 1 - 17, 2023
Lee Man-hee’s spare, lyrical film concerns the strained relationship of a poor young couple after they are faced with a bleak dilemma. Forgotten in storage for 37 years after censors refused to allow its release, A Day Off was belatedly recognized as one of the decade’s masterpieces.
Heo-wook and Ji-youn are a young couple, desperately poor, who can meet only on Sundays. Without any money to go to a cafe, they wander the windswept streets and parks of Seoul. Their future is bleak and their relationship appears strained. And they face a crisis: Ji-youn is pregnant. Unable to support a child, she tells Heo-wook that she wants an abortion. Forgotten in storage for 37 years after censors refused to allow its release, A Day Off was belatedly recognized as one of the decade’s masterpieces. Clearly influenced by European auteurs such as Antonioni and Resnais, Lee Man-hee’s spare, lyrical images express everything that the film’s physically and spiritually exhausted heroes struggle to put into words. Poetic and rich, A Day Off is, for all its bitter pessimism, a kind of love letter to the expressive potential of cinema. Restored in 2017 by the Korean Film Archive.
For $30, receive one ticket to this film and a select menu item at Café Paradiso, located in FLC’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Learn more about our Dinner + Movie combo here.
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