The title Frosted Window (흐린 창문 너머의 누군가, heulin changmun neomeoui nugunga) refers to the film’s final segment, a meta meditation on grief and loss, but, on the other hand, it’s true enough that we sometimes look at the world through a blurred lens and meet each other through an imperfect abstraction. A three-part portmanteau film, each of the segments takes place in a different season, with the opening titles perhaps standing in for an otherwise unseen spring, and reflect the director’s flights of fancy in imagining the lives of those living in the quiet backstreets of Seochon in Seoul, which is known for its literary associations and historical architecture.
It may be its maze-like quality that gives rise to so many differing tales, but in the first segment, at least, it stands in as another place as a lovelorn artist tries to pick up various women by bothering them while they are minding their own business in public places. The first is in a German coffee shop, where he speaks to a woman in English assuming her to be a foreigner because she has international vibes and is reading a book in German, but she is actually Korean, if having lived abroad for many years, which is awkward. Nevertheless, he carries on trying to chat her up while she tolerates him. Eventually he gets the message and leaves, trying to pick up another foreign woman in the street before backing off when she’s joined by a foreign man. The artist seems to a romantic who finds inspiration in these quests for love and advises his friend, a blocked writer, to go for a walk in search of romance in order to reawaken his creativity.
But a man who is also a blocked writer played by the same actor turns up in the second part where he is both an observer and an object. A woman calls a man to an upscale bar and drinks expensive whisky with him. The man is clearly interested in her, though he has a girlfriend he’s become tired of but won’t break up with, but she seems uninterested in him even as she continues to behave flirtatiously. There’s obviously something else going on, but it’s not originally clear if she wanted to toy with him a while, is making fun of him by exploiting his attraction to her to get him to make a fool of himself (to which he gladly obliges), or has something against his unseen girlfriend, on whom this is all very unfair no matter which way you look at it. It is, however, a performance for the barman, who watches silently until the woman comes back later to ask him what he thought.
The woman, a local beautician, along with another from the florist’s who reunites with the artist in the October-set first tale, reappear in the last one echoing the sense of a fictional world that begins to take over as one story gives way to another. This time we have two artists, an actress who has been taking some time out, and a female film director she has worked with previously, who meet by chance in a cafe of which this area seems to have a lot considering its size. As the director outlines the story, we see the actress playing her role blurring the lines between the layers of “reality” present in this segment and the film as a whole. We have been, in some ways, like the barman passive observers with each of these tales performed for our benefit, but this last meta segment allows the actress to begin processing the weight of a loss which may be her own.
She is saved, in a way, by the friendly atmosphere of Seochon and the kindness of strangers that restore her sense of self-worth, both as an actress and person. The actress tells the director that though she had taken only a small break, people had already forgotten her and so her return to acting has been more difficult than anticipated with no offers of major roles, only smallish, walk-on parts. The encounter with a fan shows her that she had been missed and there are those who are waiting to see her again on screen, so her life and career had not been pointless and there is a path forward for her in the wake of her loss. This is perhaps testament to the frosty window of Seochon, home to a thousand stories, and a gentle warmth that seems to emanate even in the depths of winter.
Frosted Window screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 