French filmmaker, festival programmer in Busan International Short Film Festival and guest professor of film editing at Dongseo University Sebastien Simon, follows on the experimental “The Troubled Troubadour” with a travelogue/documentary, once more shot in Busan, but this time in 3D (The review was based on the 2D version of the film).
A stranger arrives in Mipo, a place that used to be a fishing village located on the edge of Haeundae beach, in Busan, and starts recording the way the place looks now, after years of urban development have completely transformed the place into a stylish, tourist-attracting area. His recording, which occasionally transitions into low-fi footage (Super 8mm), shows both how the area looks now, with the Haeundae Blueline Park and LCT Towers dominating the scenery along with the train tracks, and how the area looked in the past, with the juxtaposition of the two highlighting the difference in the most eloquent way. Furthermore, along with the change in scenery, it also serves as a depiction of the change in cinematic technique, with the sum of the two inducing the film with an almost philosophical sense about change and its impact.
Archival footage from the past, and a discussion between the stranger and a local, Kim Young-joon, sheds even more light to the ways the area has changed, while highlighting how much the locals despise the altered scenery and the gentrification that has brought to their area. The ending comment the 15-minute short leaves, however, is neither positive or negative, with Simon leaving it to the audience to decide if the change was good or bad, with the beauties the change brought being presented in equal measure, courtesy of DP Alaric Hamacher.
At the same time, the inclusion of different types of cinematic elements (video diary, narration, footage from the past, dialogue etc) works excellently for the movie, retaining the audience’s interest from beginning to end, while showcasing the job done in the editing by Simon.
“The Old, The New and The Other” is an excellent short, that is equally pleasant to the eye and informative, white retaining a sense of artistry that moves beyond genre. Now it only remains to watch in in 3D
