[A Sip of Books] Watching a Movie... Not the Story but the 'Gaze'

Editor's NoteSome sentences encapsulate the entire content of a book, while others instantly resonate with the reader’s heart, creating a connection with the book. We excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from books.

This is an essay collection co-written by novelist Seo Ije, who majored in film, and translator Lee Jisoo, who loves movies. The two first met when novelist Seo Ije hosted a book talk for translator Lee Jisoo. The scenes and conversations from that day vividly settled in their minds, leading them to write a book together that compresses memories “about movies, movie theaters, and people intertwined with movies.” Under one theme, they exchanged essays, experiencing the memories of watching films and the messages conveyed by movies through each other’s perspectives. From the excitement of rushing home after school as teenagers eager to go to the cinema, to university days when they went beyond liking movies to actually making them, and even to office life where they reluctantly watched films following their boss, movies appear as witnesses scattered throughout their past. Sharing moments and memories related to film, the two offer a rich narrative. The author says, “I only recently realized that what I wanted to see through movies was not the story, but the gaze. In other words, I wanted to see the world as others see it.”

Sometimes I imagined a world without movies. That is, an art form that existed only briefly for about 100 to 200 years in the vast history of humanity. Is this really the end of movies? Occasionally I think about it, and because I think so, I believe movies will continue. Imagining disappearance has always been proof of love. - p.20

We do not live only for the thrilling moments when gaps are filled. Life rather stretches long before and after those moments. Filling gaps to feel intense happiness or satisfaction may be occasionally necessary in our long and tedious lives. However, if we cannot fill every gap like crazy, it might be better to learn how to live with some gaps. - p.56~57

“The only way not to be alone is to not exist,” I once wrote a novel starting with this line. The experience in the theater was both an experience of me disappearing for a moment and a time spent with countless others. I was always alone, but in that way, I could sometimes not be alone. Forgetting or erasing the fact that I was alone for a moment, or each being alone together. - p.67~68

The belief that something continues even after disappearance. Perhaps I favor Umimachi Diary because through movies, I can indirectly experience that romantic belief which never really came to me personally. All stories continue in some form, and I hope someday I can believe that too. - p.107

The blackout in the theater is a cue signaling entry into another world. When the lights come back on and you return to the real world, there is surely a subtly changed self with a different heart than before. - p.158

Movies taught me another language. How to speak through images, how to speak through gaze, how to speak through silence. - p.208

The relationship becomes ambiguously richer by the absence of the word love. There, Seorae always moves a few steps ahead of Haejun and waits for the later-coming Haejun. The scene where Haejun understands Seorae’s Chinese a beat late through a translation app seems to metaphorically represent their relationship. If you put their trajectories on a musical staff, the melody that started first and the melody that started later might overlap to form a canon harmony. - p.219

Nevertheless, when we love images, when we believe in them, images come one step closer to us. Just like the last scene of this movie, where Asako and Baku come through the window. They were there as if they had stepped out of the screen. Movies were windows to see the world, but we had the power to open those windows. When the window is open, the beloved image always comes to us. - p.236

The Beloved Scene Came to Me | Seo Ije & Lee Jisoo | Maumsanchaek | 252 pages | 15,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.