One of the advantages of a film festival is that you get to an amazing number of different film styles within an extremely short period of time. The Actresses, directed by South Korean director E J Yong, is billed as a "mockumentary". It belongs to a class of its own. It is part real life and part fiction. In introducing it before the start of the film, the director said that he thought it might be an interesting idea to bring 6 famous actors together and see how they react together in a filming situation. And it is indeed interesting!
It is practically impossible to describe the film in words. Everything happened so quickly. The general idea is that the fashion magazine Vogue has decided for its centenary edition to invite 6 famous Korean actresses to pose for its cover and central feature on the theme "more beautiful than gems". However, there was some mess up because of snow in a Japanese airport which delayed the delivery of the relevant jewellery. So the photo-shooting had to stop after mid-day to await the arrival of the jewellery. The film recounts how the different actresses reacted to the invitation before their arrival upon the photographic set, how they were treated and how they treated the magazine staff, the photgraphers, hair dressers, the project manager, the costume girls, and how they treated each other when they came face to face with one other. The actresses made use of the time to show off, to put down the others, to criticize each other, by veiled references or sometimes openly, to show good form by acting "decently" to give the impression they "care" for one another, of not losing control over their true feelings for each other and eventually hitting it off by revealing their "true" selves, pouring out their fears, their jealousies, anger, their frustrations, their admiration of some for the others, their personal failings, their hopes, their dreams by profitting from the lack of work by having a Christmas party for a "white Christmas" when snow suddenly fell.
The cutting was fast and furious and since they were women, the talk and gossips never stopped for a second! We are shown the actresses in various stages of the shooting sessions, how they need to constantly "project" a good image almost "despite" themselves and how they were concerned with how they "look" in various outfits.. There was no lack of humour and some really beautiful pictures as we are shown in slide-show like rapidity to the sound of clicking shutters photos after photos and one scene cut into another. At the start of the film we are shown one of the actresses, one in her mid-30s talking to the oldest actress before the shooting. The oldest actress was worried who would appear before she did. They had to manoeuvre to arrive the last to show how important they were! In fact, she arrived at 4 a.m. when she was supposed to arrive at 5 a.m. And she insisted that she was sure she had set the alarm clock right! And when she arrived, she wore her mink coat and was told not to smoke because it might ruin the clothes. And she was constantly pressing the actress in her mid-30s to come. But she took her time. But later when another actress in her mid-50s arrived, she was permitted to smoke! And when it was time for her to do the shooting. she was told she must change her hairstyle. She protested, "But I spent so much on this hairstyle already!" But despite her protests, she complied with the request.
The youngest of the group of 6 actresses was in her late teens or early 20's and the oldest was over 60! The idea is to have one representative for each decade from the 1950s to the 1990s . They all had different personalities: some innocent and easy going, some extremely aggressive, some very hypocritical, some more open with how they actually feel, some merely did not care. And there was marked contrasts in their atttitude to their work: some thought they must be very "professional", others think nothing of it. And three of them were divorced. But no matter to what age group they belong, they all share one trait in common: they were always concerned to look "beautiful", and for some, depsite their age. They talked about who their favourite actresss were, how they looked at marriage and boy friends and who feels unwanted and recounted how times have changed through the different epoques of film industry and how they must always do what their manager and public image consultant advised and how they could seldom really be themselves.
I like one scene in particular. During the lunch break, one of the ladies went to the toilet and on the way out heard someone singing a very beautiful love song on a guitar behind a closed door. Out of curiosity, she opened it and found a young hair stylist sitting on the floor strumming a guitar with his back to the door, totally committed and immersed in the emotions of that song. She listened, the others saw her. They were curious too. So they lined up behind her, three on each side of the corridor outside that door and enjoyed the song being sung by this young man in his practice session . When the young man finished and they were about to say how sweet and how cute he was in their collective swoon, they saw the young man abruptly put down the guitar, moved his hands forward and said a quick good bye to his girl friend and then switched off his mobile phone lying on the floor of one of the steps of the staircase!
In another scene, one of them, the actress in her mid-20s was talking in the toilet to her friend about how badly she was treated by another older actress in her mid-30s who asked about her zodiac sign Gemini. The latter said that Geminis are intelligent, materialistic calculating, selfish and the only good thing about Geminis are that they are successful. But when she was told that in her face earlier, she remained calm and even managed to squeeze out her trademarked "smiling face" and kept nodding her head in acknowledgement, as if she did not care. But to be fair, the other actress did admit that she herself was also a Gemini. However, in that telephone conversation with her friend, she said she was so angry that the older actress was so mean. Then the older actress suddenly emerged in the dark. She heard everything! You can imagine the embarrassment!
In still another scene, the actress in her mid-30s returned to the Chritmas party with the promised Dom Perignon and French cheese, but with her boy friend,who only stayed a little while. The oldest actress immediately blurted out that it was so unfair that only she got his boyfriend around without giving the others the chance to bring theirs along too! At the start of the shooting, they found a handsome looking young man standing by with nothing to do. They asked who he was and was told that he as a photographic assistant. Then one of them remarked it is always good to have good looking man around even if he did abolutely nothing to assist in anything. Just his presence is sufficient to make the shooting session more feel right!
The oldest actress was complaining that her remuneration got less and less with each passing age and that it was ridiculous that her market price should vary with the condition of her skin rather than her acting ability but nonethelss, that's why she had to spend enormous amount of money just to keep her skin smooth and unwrinkled and questioned why the men cannot look at their acting but must always value them according to the condition of their skin! But all agreed that how they looked mattered enormously, whether they liked it or not. The actress in her mid-30s was constantly worrying that she might be getting too fat but would do nothing to stop her eating and drinking. There was not a time when he does not have a glass of wine in her hands. It is not easy being an actress. They had to live for their public! No wonder so many of them drift into drugs, divorces and alcoholism!
However hypocritically they treated each other at the start of the film, by the end, they had formed a common bond: they understood each other much better and were able to smile over their differences. It did not matter for how long. They had certainly given us a wonderful opportunity to take a peep into the joys, the glamour, the pressures, the private miseries, fears, anxieties and frustrations of being Korean actresses. The gems had to be spliced into the photos. Thanks to E. J Yong there is certainly something much more than what is being shown on the cover of Vogue: we were shown the actresses as flesh and blood human beings, not the merely the divas that they are made out to be! In this film all six actresses played themselves and co-wrote the script: Yun Yeo-Jong, Lee Mi-Suk, Ko Han-Jeong, Choi Ji-Woo, Kim Min-Hie and Kim Ok- bin, really a first.
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