“Anchor” Director Jung Ji-yeon, “Woman’s Pain Is Portrayed Through Obsessive Lines”

After watching director Jung Ji-yeon’s first film , I remembered the words of François Ohjong that I had heard once. “As for showing complex female characters, I can say that I am a feminist director.” In the same sense, one can say that is a women’s film. The film reveals the director’s colors within the framework of a genre film with great care. After calmly exploring the maze of the subconscious, I met director Jung Ji-yeon, who returned, and listened to the hidden stories of the film.

– Reminds me of Hitchcock. Keywords such as “mother, playing with the public and neurotic woman” are similar.

= There are similarities. In the case of , it follows the villain after the death of Janet Lee. While writing the script , there was a moment when the main character had to disappear. This is when the story changes from another person’s point of view. At this point, the protagonist turns into a villain. And the audience follows In-ho’s (Shin Ha-kyun) point of view. Hitchcock’s bold and unique plot is still stunning today.

– Compared to the intensity of what Sera (Chun Woo-hee) is going through, the length of the film is not long. How did you set up the main character’s situation?

= In the past, during the filming of the short film (2008), I defined the main character as ‘a person who wants a sense of liberation’. similar. There is a person who just has to look at him, and his inner self is separated. In both films, the woman is a prisoner of herself. Sera is a person who originally has a desire for human relations and wants to develop it further. However, over time, the relationship grew closer. The situation is exacerbated by a life focused on success. Indeed, women become homemakers and only work when they work. I wondered if I was losing some kind of balance. The starting point of is right after a shocking incident. The protagonist’s daily life is kept under pressure. So the movie never lasts long. There is a cause for the epidemic and the situation is exacerbated by habitual desire. It was decided that the whole affair should not exceed one month.

– Inho’s character is like a detective. I also felt that I was more concerned with case studies than patient care.

= Inho is an obsessive and strange doctor. During the interview, I met several doctors who were shocked by their relationship with patients. He said he felt guilty because of the content he couldn’t grasp. If I boldly took this situation as a compulsion, it looked like I would face a close confrontation with Sarah. I also had the idea of ​​wanting to mysteriously distort gender through Inho. As soon as he appears, he becomes suspicious. Thanks to Inho, Sera looks deeper into herself and discovers her strong masculine side. So, I asked actor Shin Ha-kyun to dry it. I wanted it to be different from the role of a doctor so far, but I felt like I fit in with the other characters. Balance was important.

– If there is a part to which you paid particular attention visually in relation to the staging of the characters.

= In the ‘consultation room scene’ where Sera and In-ho face each other, the tension must have been felt. It needed a striking contrast, like mirrors that reflect each other. There’s a big window behind Inho, but I made it light on purpose. I wanted to give it a shadow. Instead, Sera reflected the light vividly and expressed it visually in a different way. The “hypnotic scene” is also important. The hypnotic chamber connects the closed chamber inside and the open outside. At first, it expresses itself as a suffocating and closed space. Then, when you open your eyes, you see a scene like a “field in a painting” hanging in the treatment room. Sera enters the world he created, exactly what Inho wanted. Although the physical situation of the two is a closed room, we wanted to give a contrast that moves forward with a feeling of openness.

– The term “water” also seems important.

= The emphasis on water is mainly for two reasons. First, it is used “generally”. The rain falls like a torrential downpour, and someone enters an unfamiliar house. But the door to the house is open. At this time, if the water flows like a flood, fear increases. And “psychologically” I wanted the water to have a natural symbolic meaning. At first, the water stagnates. It is completely blocked and stagnant. A mother-daughter incident takes place in such a stagnant place. Later, when Sera felt like she was reborn after going through a series of processes, I wanted to give her a sense of freedom through the water. It was close to the surface, so I wanted people to think I could get out anytime. I had to be able to swim with flexibility and feel like I wasn’t stuck anymore.

– Mother So-jeong (Lee Hye-young) says “I’m confused” after talking to In-ho. And persuade his daughter in a firm tone: “You say that I should divorce like that.

= Sojung is a socially sensitive person. Honor for oneself is important and he is strict in his actions. Confused by the phone call from the doctor, she spits out her usual words. In fact, it was very difficult to voice my mother on screen. In consultation with the cinematographer, I tried shooting with Sera unconditionally, or shooting with the feeling of being reflected in a frame or television. Not only the dialogue, but the extreme situation of alcohol consumption was also carried out in a similar context. It must have looked sturdier than it actually is. You may be thinking, ‘Is your mother too overbearing?’ But when you look at the ending, it makes sense. Fantasy is always extreme.

– Is the end of the film a happy ending?

= The mother tries to divorce her husband. And the husband separates the mother. And there comes a situation when it becomes difficult for her to think for herself. I met my husband in love at first, but I think there was a certain sense of duty. There is also a time when Sera got married to get away from her mother. But in the end they are not released. I tried to put this kind of pain in “compulsive lines”. In fact, giving up work for Sarah is a tragedy. how can you be happy I thought a lot at the end. It is not appropriate to conclude that work or parenthood is more correct. In a nutshell, this film is the story of overcoming trauma reaching an existential state, saying, “I’m alive.”