Freedom from Promises and Logic

About two years ago, I faced economic and systematic difficulties while preparing my first feature film. In present-day South Korea, there seemed to be no way to make the kind of movie I wanted. To gain funding my film had to give assurances and arm itself with logic in every way, and, unfortunately, it wasn’t something I was capable of providing.

Eventually, I decided to make a very small movie for about 7,000 dollars. Interestingly, because logic and capital are always proportional, the $7,000 guaranteed freedom from all kinds of promises and logic in exchange for financial security.

While filming the film’s first part, I suffered continuously from two thoughts. First, is it possible to make a film that is free from promises and logic but still 'operates'? The second stemmed from my ongoing interest in subjects that go beyond the limits of my cognitive pattern. However, I didn't want to pretend to be some kind of guru who can see things beyond our bodies and our daily lives, to see beyond what’s in front of our eyes.

Beliefs, or cognitive patterns, dominate our lives as well as cinema. The true value of this world and cinema will forever be irrelevant to us. But the cognitive pattern inside our minds categorizes, traps, and shuts things out while following the system that was previously set. This relationship between input and output influences the world and cinema. Perhaps because we strive and fantasize to conquer complex systems we’re unable to control, we fill our worlds with patterns of constraints. And within it, we’re lost between anxiety and emotional fullness.

I had to find another way after filming part one. I spent a year like a tramp. I couldn't believe my method.

It occurred to me that the compulsion to force a movie to operate like some machine without any sort of deep consideration, was perhaps related to a fetishism for images that transcend our bodies and our daily lives. I had to find another way after filming part one. I spent a year like a tramp. I couldn't believe my method.

Then, suddenly, I thought that what could be called an “endless vibration”, which would be helpful for people like me, who had no natural beliefs. Amidst endless vibrations of every shape and size, we can sometimes break our cognitive patterns and feel the bare face of reality. I say this because our cognitive patterns are also a form of endless vibration. So these vibrations continually engulf our minds, no matter how far we try to throw them away. The frequency of the two must be in sync in order to end this confrontation, and within this rediscovery of cognition, I decided to come up with a new model.

While imagining a three-dimensional figure made from vibrations, I was able to come up with the film’s second part, which would barely connect to part one. This was a difficult period, but I tried my best to materialize that small object between the possible and the impossible, even through scribbles.

Yoo Heong-jun