Eight years after Burning, director Lee Chang-dong is preparing to return with the Venice competition title Possible Love, but the acclaimed Korean filmmaker says the long hiatus was never a break from film.
In an interview with Variety at the Malaysian International Film Festival (MIFFest) where he received the Lifetime Achievement Award, Lee said the years since Burning have changed him both personally and creatively.
“I loved stories from an early age,” he says. “I’ve always tried to understand life through stories. That’s how I communicate with my audience. Just as I’m looking for stories, I’m also looking for meaning in life.”
Even after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, Lee never looked back on his career. “It’s not an accomplishment. Rather, it’s more like an encouragement to make better films in the future.”
“Today, directors are judged by box office receipts and valued by the industry,” he added. “But the main reason I continue to make films is the audience. Their expressions, their encounter with the film. Thanks to film, I feel connected to something bigger.”
Lee also cites Taiwanese author Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1983 classic The Boys of Wind and Cloud as one of the films that most profoundly shaped him. He first saw the film on VHS with English subtitles and later met director Hou at a retrospective in South Korea.
“When I first saw it, I felt like I had lived it,” Lee says. “It was like I had made my own movie.”
Lee, who is also a novelist, added, “Literature is complete when it reaches the reader.People who read a single sentence of a novel create their own imagination.”
When asked about the growing international influence of Korean films, director Lee said, “I’m very happy that Korean films are getting so much attention. However, I also question whether young filmmakers will be able to maintain this creative energy in the future. I think that’s something all filmmakers should continue to think about.”
