Bleak Night

You stay with the night, not only cinematically, but emotionally and intellectually. Desperate for illumination, you struggle to make sense of things in this South Korean high school drama about...

A boy dies. And the film shuffles time to the point where the past and present are indecipherable. Because of problems in name recognition, it takes longer than it should to discover the identity of the deceased. Is he the one being bullied at the beginning? Probably not.

Conversation amongst the teenagers can hardly be described as enlightening. Angst has a way of curbing excess and weakening resolve. Long silences stretch from one scene to another. The audience, like the actors, remain in the dark.

The director's uncompromising attitude towards the integrity of his vision should be applauded. Trouble is, what's left for those who don't share intimate knowledge of a South Korean schoolboy's mind? The acting, needless to say, is impeccable.