Review for Bleak Night

Introduction

Here’s a first. A Third Window Films release that I actually did not want to watch! It’s not so much the film itself, although the somewhat kitchen sink drama aspect to the PR blurb didn’t really strike my fancy. It’s just one of those combination of circumstances, an ever increasing pile of review discs, the threat of real life intruding, a period of insomnia, the feeling of burnout when you think you’ve run out of things to say, and that all these films are beginning to blur into one (Seriously, show me a Korean film where someone doesn’t get slapped!), and I was certainly not in the right frame of mind to review Bleak Night. I was actually resenting the fact that I would have to devote 116 minutes of my life to the film, and first watching the director’s short film, Boys, also on this disc did little to change my mind about that. So, biases established, let’s get on with this review.


A grieving father, desperately looking for answers, a high school student being bullied by a gang of his classmates, and three boys, best friends enjoying the prime of their lives having fun. They seem like three separate stories, but as Bleak Night reveals, it’s all one story.

Picture

Bleak Night gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic NTSC transfer on this disc. It’s a nice progressive transfer, which allows for smoother playback on compatible devices. Bleak Night is a low budget film, shot digitally and mostly with natural light. The transfer is adequate, although I did find that blacks tended to grey, whites were a little blown, shadow detail and contrast in particular were lacking, and there were odd moments of shimmer on fine detail. It may be indicative of the source, but I did get the feeling that this film could look better on DVD.

Sound

You get a DD 5.1 Korean audio track to go with Bleak Night. You might think that 5.1 surround is a little overkill for a dialogue heavy drama, but there are subtle ominous moments in the sound design that take advantage of the surround audio. The dialogue is clear throughout, and the subtitles are accurately timed. However there are a fair few typographical errors, and one or two sentences that don’t quite scan.

Extras

The disc presents its content with an animated menu.

The extras with Bleak Night amount to the theatrical trailer for the film and a weblink. But the real draw is the director’s short film, Boys, which lasts 31½ minutes. It’s a brief drama that looks at the social politics that ensue in a classroom between a clique of friends and the class loner. One of the gang inadvertently breaks the loner’s kite, a source of much amusement to his friend, but when the boy confronts the loner privately to apologise, is he sincere, or is it something more sinister?


This short film is presented in 1.85:1 letterbox with DD 2.0 Korean and English subtitles. The subtitle translation is a little iffy when it comes to syntax and grammar. It really could have done with some proof-reading, while the image is prone to combing artefacts, but the short film is watchable enough.

Conclusion

I feel like such a cliché! I sat down to watch Bleak Night with half an eye on the clock, and my mind already thinking on what else I had to review. The opening scenes of a thoroughly domestic, if occasionally violent and unsettling drama did little to grab my attention, and I began to worry that I might fall asleep before the film even got going. 2 hours later, I’m glued rapt to the film half convinced that this might just be one of the best dramas to come out of South Korea. As I said, it’s a total cliché.


The thing is that it is a wholly domestic story, certainly not flashy, and in no way melodramatic or histrionic. It’s a simple, relatable and indeed very familiar story of school friendships falling apart. What makes it memorable is the way that it is told. There are three narratives here, or rather three chapters of one story. You have the grieving father looking for answers, the vindictive bullying that sours a classroom, and you have the three best friends hanging out together. Tell that story in order, from A to B to C, and you have a mundane narrative indeed.


Bleak Night on the other hand flits between the three periods, out of sequence and with no exposition. You have to pick up what is happening just from the imagery and the performances. When you start the film with school boys goofing around, with one introverted loner avoiding the frivolity, then jump to a bunch of bullies laying into a hapless victim, and then to the grieving father, you’ll immediately make some assumptions, about who the victim was, about who the father is grieving for. You’d be wrong. The film will then show another sequence of events out of order that answer a few questions that you might have, correct your presumption, but then cause you to make more assumptions and leave you with more questions. And again you’ll find that you are wrong.


It’s a great way of telling a story, fiendishly difficult to get right, and very easy to get wrong. You need an editor at the top of their game. Bleak Night’s storytelling is nigh on perfect, showcasing great performances from a predominantly young cast, and exceptional writing. This is a coherent and engaging story, but one that continually wrong-foots the viewer, and reveals new layers to the story and characters at every turn. Even the final scene will alter the way that you perceive these characters, and to be able to do that and make the story feel natural and realistic at the same time is an astounding achievement.


Of course I won’t tell you what happens in the story, but it’s a very engaging and realistic character study of school friends, and how petty jealousies and paranoia can cause such friendships to fall apart. Anyone who has been to school has no doubt seen best of friends become bitter enemies because someone got ‘dissed’ or ‘blanked’, and cliques can form around former friends like lightning to continue and heighten the antagonism. It can rapidly spiral out of control, and the end result in Bleak Night, while extreme, certainly isn’t unheard of. Films can be shocking because of how intense and far-fetched they are, but films can also be shocking because of how realistic they are. Bleak Night definitely falls into the latter category, and it’s well worth watching.