Tale of Cinema + On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate

Q&A with Hong Sangsoo will take place between the two screenings

6:30pm Tale of Cinema (89m) 
A bifurcated tale of what cinema can do to those in its thrall, Hong’s sixth feature is composed of two halves: in the first, a young man encounters a woman he used to know, and after a drunken night of abortive sex, the two make a double-suicide pact; in the second, a slightly older man seemingly has an extremely similar experience, as it becomes apparent that the first half was in fact a film-within-the-film whose male lead appears to be based upon him. A key work in the first phase of Hong’s career, Tale of Cinema is something like a Rosetta Stone for his subsequent twice-told tales.

9:00pm On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (115m)
After an actor is passed over for a part, he leaves Seoul to go visit an old friend and former classmate; the friend recounts to him the legend of the Buddhist temple Turning Gate, which then, as if by magic, initiates a series of romantic dalliances. First, a young dance instructor falls head over heels for him, and then a married woman swears she knows him from somewhere. He begins to wonder if this second woman is his soulmate, but eerie coincidences and feelings of déjà vu make his choice between the two women ever more uncertain. Hong’s fourth feature is a playful and profound meditation on love, fate, and how we try to make sense of reality’s essential ambiguity.