The story revolves around Yun Gi-jun played by Shin Seong-il who was already famous at that time an affluent married man living in Seoul.
The protagonist, alienated and stressed by his job, determines to return to his home town of Mujin and visits the grave of his mother. There he meets Ha In-suk a music teacher played by Yoon Jeong-hee who portrays the main character in Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry” (2010). Within minutes of meeting each other, they generate an intense interaction based on memories, reminiscences, flashbacks and disloyalty.
The strong opener of the story makes Mujin village the main character, as Yun describes it as “hot sun, heavy fog, and distorted people from poverty”, whom residents are enveloped in like permanent mist that they consider “the most potent drug on earth”(Yun 7). The mist is a key factor that helps to establish the fragile and delicate dialectical interchange between past and present since it demonstrates a perfect example of memory’s nebulous nature, which fades away with years. Additionally, this does not only serve as an image from dreams; it also acts as a physical hindrance preventing the village from becoming one of those cities deemed more “civilized,” such Seoul. It even becomes a barrier that hides the short lived affair between Yun and Ha. Mujin is where all talks turn around these two main characters. While she would “give anything” to leave that place for big city life, Yun Gi-jun has already been through many years of loneliness and madness in his motherland using words full of negativity (Yun 24).
In this desert-like region, Kim’s film has moments of pure philosophical grandeur. The shots showing the protagonist’s traumatic past are adequately woven into present situations, indicating that Yun as a person is a continuous function of who he was before. Solitude is one concept that Yun thought it should be “repeated continuously” during his youth. In one of the most intense sequences, both the characters stroll on a beach discussing the “sickness of loving no one else but oneself”. Therefore, despite there being a brief romantic interlude between them, it rather brings into contact two extremely nostalgic and suffering souls.
It often reminds one of some elements of style in highly acclaimed French Nouvelle Vague unconsciously evoking sensations similar to “Hiroshima mon amour” (1959) or “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961) but the directorial choices are good and strong. The feeling of estrangement is carved on faces of two leading actors giving almost closed performance which underlines hidden lunacy.
The soundtrack deserves additional praise. The whole film is a jazzy melancholic theme that constantly recurs, and Ha In-suk’s mournful singing serves as the final beacon of hope in the mist. Fun fact: one of the pieces from “Mist” has been chosen by Park Chan-wook to be an ending for his last film, “Decision to Leave” (2022). Indeed, more than fifty years after, Inspector Hae Joon and Seo Rae may be seen as Yun Gi-jun and Ha In-suk’s post-modern successors.
To sum it up, “Mist” is a hidden treasure of Korean cinema that should not only be rediscovered but also reevaluated because of its innovative filmmaking nature; although more importantly for portraying South Korea’s depressive stage on its road to unknown progress.
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