Love Rain episodes 3 and 4 - drama as poetry

[dangermousie]

People may disagree about how well YSH's narrative flows and how much it touches you (he is one of those who has passionate fans and mocking haters, with very few people in-between), but I cannot believe anyone would quibble with the fact that his dramas are probably the most-beautifully filmed dramas out there. To go from Love Rain to any other drama currently airing (even those I love like K2H and TEM) is to notice how inferior their (excellent by any other standard) cinematography is in comparison. Other dramas have good cinematography. YSH's dramas are poetry in motion. Literally any shot in any episode can be framed as a painting. In a way, he reminds me of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, another very idiosyncratic film-maker devoted to beauty of images and the hothouse of emotion, whose work you will never mistake for another's, and who has as many detractors as rabid fans.

Watching episodes 3 and 4, in which the love between In Ha and Yoon Hee both crests and unravels, all with understated delicacy (YSH is the proponent of old school - his melodrama is about restraint and stillness, not makjang yelling so popular nowadays. There is one small and sudden act (and quickly over) of violence in episode 3 and it shocks you to the core precisely because of its rarity), it struck me that what YSH is making is, in effect, a silent movie. There is dialogue and it's appropriate but it is utterly unnecessary - if you put this on mute and/or turned off the subtitles you will still get 100% of the story and emotional impact, not because the story is so simplistic, but because YSH manages his images so that they convey the whole story - In Ha's silouette in the rain, Yoon Hee's handkerchief, the intertwined fingers, frosted shadows of letters in the window.

I mean, look at this scene. Dialogue is unnecessary:









A silent movie is a very different art and an acquired taste. I am a huge fan because, when done right, I find that by relying solely on images, the work bypasses my reason and goes straight for the emotional part of my heart.



Their brief, fairy-tale-like getaway to the sea. I love the shyness and the happiness and the whole ethereal beauty of the moment underpinned with very real emotional and physical reactions (In Ha's giddy face as she falls asleep on his arm, their shy happiness as they hold hands, her smile at his singing, his shivering after he gave up his coat). I know I said it before but this is a total mood-piece, poetry in motion. And yet I love these people, I care for their happiness. I want them to reconnect 30 years later, to get another chance.




























































































Both protectiveness and anger (hers), happiness and desperate seeking of forgiveness (his) feel, once again, wordless.












































This is probably my favorite scene because it encapsulates everything - his determination to keep her love, her desire to forgive him but factors beyond their control separating them...




















This just killed me...








It's a fade-out I loved: they are separated by her illness and his forced draft (ah, the joys of dictatorship!) but the new generation might be able to find what eluded them...











"One..two...three..."





I love how very beautiful the present looks and is filmed but how very different.

If I had to pick the most underrated airing drama, Love Rain would be it.