You’re very detail-oriented as a director.
We had to be more detailed with everything because it was a single location. If we had a hundred locations, we wouldn’t have had as much energy or time to think about all these things.
I noticed that, even on the living room wall, pictures come down as the situation deteriorates.
I’m glad you noticed that. My production designer Shin Yoo-jin came up with these great ideas. She thought of [the chapter structure] as an opportunity to give the film more visual diversity. If it’s just one house that looks the same throughout the whole run time, then people will get visually bored. So she used each chapter to create different interiors and emphasize what the characters are going through psychologically.
Is the chapter structure another way to mix things up, due to the single location?
It was a good tool. We did want to mix it up, and we had three opportunities to do so cinematically. With the costumes or hair and makeup, we could add different touches here and there. With the cinematography and the lighting, we gave different tones to each chapter. For example, the first chapter emphasizes the loving nature of the couple, so we made it a bit more cozy with warm lights and more decor in the space. The second chapter should feel more cold and claustrophobic, so camera-wise and production design-wise, we strove for that look. Chapter three is just madness.
What is the cinematography for madness?
I requested conflicting things. I wanted the production design to be as mad as you can get. But I wanted the cinematography to feel like a documentary, because otherwise I thought it would pull you out. I really wanted to stay with the characters emotionally.
Were you playing with different perspectives?
Absolutely. In chapters one and two, we follow Soo-jin’s perspective very closely. Even if what she’s thinking is unreasonable, we get where she’s coming from. But in the third chapter, the camera is [detached] and we get a balanced view that leans towards Hyun-su.
It’s a risk to do that, especially for a commercial horror film. One of the axioms in the commercial film industry in Korea is that you never change perspectives. Another is you always have a clear ending so that when [the audience] walks out of the theater, they feel like they have closure.
