Rewind (Videoreul boneun namja) Movie Review:


“Rewind” is the story of a pleasant but emotionally bereft divorcee who has recently given up his law career to run a video store. (He has been given no name, so let’s just call him “He”)

His days are mostly filled with small, seemingly innocuous encounters in his shop, and the nights with getting staggeringly drunk , which gives a glimpse of more depth to his emotions under the cool, calm surface - he’s lonelier than he’ll admit, leading to telling incidents like the night he falls asleep, hugging a boozily acquired big teddy bear.

He also receives a stream of love letters from a mystery admirer, and isn’t sure which of the females fluttering around in his life is penning them.
Indeed, despite his self-imposed, solitary existence we know that he is surrounded by love, it’s just that he’s not sure if he can deal with it on any deep level.
Due to his subconsciously compassionate nature, women are drawn to him. A good listener with surprisingly gentle characteristics, even his ex can’t fully let go. There’s also a downtrodden café worker, a neighbour and even some of his customers circling around, trying to snare him.
The most well-crafted but tense encounters are with the lady who’s Mother “returned the wrong tape”. Boy, didn’t she just! This becomes a dominating storyline and you really want to know how the situation is going to be resolved.
There’s a sort of slow-burning curiosity around which of the girls he might get closer to, but a frustrating, fuzzy indecision around his behaviour.
It’s like he has a box of chocolates in front of him, and repeatedly picks a different one up each time, then puts it back in the box - then usually ends up choosing another beer instead.

As he exists mainly within the confines of the video store, he inevitably ends up watching a huge volume of movies, which leads on to some surreal dream sequences relating to his life. These also work really well as they provide another outlet for his emotions, and are nicely shot using some good lighting which makes the store appear to be underwater.

Another curious little sub-story, where a vagrant comes in every day asking for money, is loaded with meaning and not just there to show his generous nature.
There are movie posters of all kinds filling the store scenes (being a video shop and all…), a great number of them for Western and especially European cinema. His most prized one is of “Three Colours: Blue”, which stars his favourite actress - but there is more significance to the title than just that.
Other examples might or might not represent his feelings, you decide - but the “Hanging Up” one did seem quite fitting.
The principal character is, however, not without his weaknesses, one huge mistake leads to a tricky situation where he seems to have inextricably backed himself into a corner.

This builds very gradually to a moment of realisation, but the conclusion may not be the expected (read: hoped for) one.
This is an engaging if slight piece of work, and doesn’t quite reach the giddy heights it could have.

Terresa Gaffney

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