The smartphone – it’s like a Swiss Army knife in some ways. It has a number of different uses and can fit comfortably in your pocket (depending on the size). From being able to download and utilize thousands of apps, its possibilities are limitless. So it should surprise no one that someone would make an attempt to use the iPhone as a cinematic device.
Park Chan-wook, acclaimed film-maker of Oldboy and Thirst, admitted that his new 30-minute short, Paranmanjang (“Life Full of Ups and Downs”) was shot using the Apple smartphone. While talking to reporters yesterday, Park said, “The new technology creates strange effects because it is new and because it is a medium the audience is used to.”
Paranmanjang is about a man transcending his current and former lives. He catches a woman while fishing in a river in the middle of the night. They both end up entangled in the line and he thinks she is dead.
Suddenly, though, she wakes up, strangles him and he passes out. When the woman awakens him, she is wearing his clothing and he hers. She cries and calls him “father.”
Made for $133,000 and shot using the iPhone 4, the short is slated to open in South Korean theaters later this month.
“There are some good points of making a movie with the iPhone as there are many people around the world who like to play and have fun with them,” Park Chan-wook said. Compared to other movie cameras, the iPhone was good “because it is light and small and because anyone can use it,” he said.
