Lai Cheuk Yin Arthur

3035571486
CLIT2007
The Day He Arrives – one-page journal
This movie has a lot of repetitive scenes, shots and elements. And out of all of them, I want to
take a look at the two goodbye scenes between Sungjoon and his ex-girlfriend, and between
Sungjoon and the bar owner. Because to me, one of the main things I took out of the movie is
life is full of repetitive elements and moments, and they’re often meaningless although people
always try to explain the meaning behind the coincidences. And in these two goodbye scenes,
we can see how Sungjoon actually wanted to break the loop and escape from the cycle of
nostalgia or memories.

In fact, the movie is shot in black and white may also because movies often use black and
white to represent memories or flashback. The reality in this movie may not be happening in
real time, but constructed in memories or mixed up with them, because there’s a lot of things
that don’t quite make sense. The clothes are the same every day, every day they go to the
same places and bars, every day they run into the same people, and the bar owner can’t
remember the kiss, and the people’s interaction, especially the goodbyes are quite unnatural
(how can people say goodbye peacefully and say will never meet again when they’re saying
how much they love each other?). To me it seems Sungjoon really can’t get over his ex-
girlfriend and that’s why he mixed up memories with his ex-girlfriend and the reality of him
and the bar owner. He also kept running into people related to show business, or filmmakers,
possibly expressing how much he missed making films.

Ok let’s go to the goodbye scenes, where Sungjoon is (kind of) trying to end the loop and say
goodbye to his past. The goodbye between Sungjoon and his ex-girlfriend starts with medium
shot of the shoes, then Sungjoon enters frame from the left and camera tilt upwards to see
Sungjoon leaving the house and saying goodbye. As they say goodbye, Sungjoon says he and
his ex-girlfriend really shouldn’t meet again, and he tells her he loves her and tells her to be
strong. Sungjoon allowed his ex-girlfriend to message him on special days, where his ex-
girlfriend always message and ignored by him throughout the movie.

The goodbye between Sunjoon and the bar owner starts with a medium shot of outside the
door of the bar, then again Sungjoon enters frame from the right, but this time, the camera
pans instead of tilt upwards to show the two shot of Sungjoon and the bar owner. This time
Sungjoon and the same actress, now being the bar owner, switched sides, now Sungjoon is on
the left. Again, Sungjoon is saying they shouldn’t meet again, and he loves her and tells her
to be strong. But the differences are, this time Sungjoon also tells her to promise to do three
things, and he also doesn’t leave his phone number to her, so she can’t message him like his
ex-girlfriend. This shows how Sungjoon changed, and wanted to get out of his past memories
more, even though the two scenes are so similar. Like during the conversation in the bar, he
said people can be similar but different at the same time.

It can also be noticed throughout the movie, there’s always visually a line between Sungjoon
and most of the female characters, when they are talking. In both goodbye scenes, the lines
are also presence to visually separate the two characters. Not sure is this for visually
expressing Sungjoon wanted to separate from them. At the end, Sungjoon also have an almost
identical wide shot of him walking near the road. But this time, he didn’t cross the road. So
it’s like, even though Sungjoon is going back to country from Seoul, and the music is also
identical at the start and at the end, Sungjoon seems to have change a bit, breaking his loop a
bit.