past and present - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Mark Jenkin – 2025 – UK – Cert. 12a – 114m

****1/2

A fisherman joins the crew of a mysteriously reappeared fishing vessel and finds himself inexplicably trapped 30 years in the past when it originally disappeared – plays in a UK director Q&A Tour from Friday, April 3rd, then is out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 24th

30 years ago, the Rose of Nevada, a small fishing vessel, set sail from a small, Cornish coastal village and never returned. Now, suddenly, it reappears in the harbour with its captain looking for crew. Nick (George Mackay) and Liam (Callum Turner), but on their return after their first fishing trip, they arrive back not in the present but 30 years ago.

Apart from this peculiar slippage of time, everyone behaves as if nothing unusual is going on. Nick misses his partner and child. Liam finds himself with a new partner and child, and plays along, taking advantage of what circumstances have offered to him, which doesn’t seem so bad.

Nick, however, feels increasingly isolated and uneasy in this situation.

Jenkin’s film plays out as a strange, enigmatic mystery.

Working as is his wont as director, cameraman and editor, not to mention sound designer and musician, Jenkin takes real pleasure in building up his story from a series of tiny details, necessitated to some extent by his use of a clockwork Bolex camera which can’t shoot a take longer than 27 seconds.… Read the rest

Mist
(Angae,
안개)

Director – Kim Soo-yong – 1967 – South Korea – 78m

****

A married man leaves Seoul to visit his dull hometown for a few days, where he embarks on a brief affair with a music teacher from the local school – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Yun Gi-jun (Shin Seong-il from The Barefooted Young, Kim Ki-duk, 1964) is bored with his job. He sits at his desk in a huge office looking at the paperwork, seeing it crawling with insects. But when others enter the office, they don’t see any of that, so it’s clearly all in his head. In many ways, that sets the scene for the mood of this heavily introspective piece which makes much use of voice over and flashback, as Gi-jun takes time out in his hometown of Mujin, for which he claims not to feel much affection but which is nevertheless full of personal history and memories for him.

We see him at home with his wife as she straightens his tie, and later as she brings her rich father over to the house.… Read the rest