I mistakenly bought tickets for the session with Danish subtitles in the Copenhagen Cinematek. Fun fact: I don´t speak Danish, nor Korean. So my impression about it is rather limited.
Cobweb is a comedy, the tale of a director trying to produce his masterpiece in the South Korea seventies. During the production, he has to manage actors, staff conflicts, censorship, and ghosts from the past. All situations presented in a light way.
Ultimately, it is a movie about movies and there are many opportunities during the film to nerd out about photography and production. Most of it takes place on a film set and there are several moments when you can enjoy this atmosphere. This happens, for example, in a very-well made and interesting climax scene.
Cobweb cast is high level. The main character is played by Song Kang-ho from Parasite, and there is some great acting from the supporting characters, especially Krystal Jang and Jeon Yeo-been, both performances won awards in Korea.
Overall, the movie is a nice, not pretentious comedy with a good story behind it. I was able to follow in spite of my language barrier. I absolutely recommend it, especially if you speak the language that it is being played in, and if you don´t, you can still watch it for the pure joy of the cinema.
Cobweb
2023 [KOREAN]
Comedy / Drama / History
Plot summary
In the 1970s, Director Kim is obsessed by the desire to re-shoot the ending of his completed film Cobweb, but chaos and turmoil grip the set with interference from the censorship authorities, and the complaints of actors and producers who can't understand the re-written ending. Will Kim be able to find a way through this chaos to fulfill his artistic ambitions and complete his masterpiece?
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
May 24, 2024 at 12:47 AM
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Fun Comedy on Filmmaking
Delightful movie-within-a-movie
Saw this at the London Film Festival, and the audience was laughing throughout the whole film. The film renders the hardship of making great artistic work into a deliciously funy and absurd rollercoaster. The plot revolves around a film director convinced that an additional 2 days of shooting can turn his film into a true masterpiece. The grandeur and delusion of his visions contrasts beautifully with the fanatic enthusiasm of one of the studio's younger producers, the self-obsessed and frail ego's of his actors and mostly the soap-opera, B-movie quality of the final outcome, which comes to life through black-and-white movie-within-a-movie scenes. All this is set against the backdrop of a heavily censored Korean film industry in the seventies, adding an additional layer of obstacles. Even though the level of chaos and length of the overall movie can sometimes stretch too far, the film keeps you hooked and curious to see whether we've been finally watching the making of crap or art, which must be what every film crew goes through on every film set. The final shot of the film is us as the audience looking out at an audience on screen, mirroring the movie-within-a-movie construct, and ends with a director in despair of not having made the one true masterpiece he had imagined. Luckily it gave us a very entertaining and smart film about the passion it really takes to make anything great, and the joy and despair of movie making.