Café Noir

The story begins with a man left by his girlfriend on Christmas Eve and spreads across the city of Seoul. The film uses its length of more than three hours as a claim: the emptiness that follows a parting is shown without being shortened. The account builds no plot; walks, encounters and long conversations follow one another. References drawn from literature stand plainly inside the text and the film does not hide them. The black and white image makes the city stop being familiar. The women are not folded into the man’s account and have scenes of their own. Shin Ha-kyun plays the lead in Jung Sung-il’s hundred and ninety eight minute South Korean film, completed in 2010.