Tong-Yup Han
By Alice Day
Northwest Asian Weekly
The University of Washington senior’s most personal creation to date, Auteur, by Tong-Yup Han, is an 18-minute short film about a director’s “solipsistic, self-destructive spiral” into descent and self-loathing when he is overlooked for an award.
The film opens with the main character, Philip, at a film festival giving an acceptance speech for an award, which we later find out that he didn’t win.
The name of the film, Auteur, meaning ‘author’ in French, is based off a film concept called Auteur theory in which the director is the sole author and takes credit for the entire film. In other words, an egotistic film director.
Han borrows from this concept and uses it to mold Philip’s character, a director with an unhealthy obsession with drugs, violence, and himself—specifically the need to garner attention, fame, and acclaim for his work.
When Philip sees the body of his murdered colleague, the actual recipient of the film award that he was denied, he falls into a rage of jealousy and disconnects with reality.
Han speaks through Philip, to express his own annoyance toward the current generation of student filmmakers who are obsessed with vanity and recognition from producing a film and are willing to sacrifice their artistic integrity in the process.
“The ego always gets in our way and the ego is often what stops us from producing good art because we’re so caught up in our own self-image and how we want to look to over people,” said Han.
The dark themes of violence, drug abuse, and pure mania are tastefully expressed by Han’s high contrasts of black and white, which emphasizes the difference between good and evil, a technique often found in the 1940s art style of film noir.
The sharp and deliberate music creeps in and out of each scene so quietly that audiences are drawn closer toward the screen and captivated until the last seconds. (end)
Auteur is an independent film and can be viewed online at http://www.hantongyup.com/?p=73.
Alice Day can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.