MIFF NOTES: Lovesong (2016, Dir. So Yong Kim)

Not quite sure where the love is in So Yong Kim’s Lovesong, or the songs for that matter. I get there’s some life-angsty, “what could have been” stuff floating around. Some “Hey, I’m married but wouldn’t it have been fun to, you know?” vibes. Those “hey why didn’t we ever get together in that threesome back at university?” conversations, that soon turn into, “hey, like, I really like you so I can’t be around you right now even though we totally want to get it on” moments.

And those, “I’m getting married now and I haven’t quite gotten over my feelings for you” conundrums that don’t seem to trump the “I’ve still got to commit to the prevailing hegemony” life choices, which soon give way to the “what are we even doing here if nobody appears interested enough in what’s going on between us to act on it” exasperation and the “are you telling me this isn’t actually going anywhere and we’ve just spent the last 80 minutes watching the cinematic equivalent of one of those tumblr pages stocked with shallow-focused wedding photography?”

The biggest question I was left with though was, why were there so many chairs at the wedding ceremony when there were only about five guests?

★★☆

Lovesong screened as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival 2016.

You can check out other films from the festival here.