Ambience takes center stage at BIFF opener 'The Table: Day and Night'
As director Kim Jong-kwan noted, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opening film, "The Table: Day and Night," is dedicated to the beauty of the fleeting little moments in life. The romantic anthology film, starring a solid ensemble of actors including Kim Min-ha, Shim Eun-kyung and Han Sun-hwa, portrays the conversations between four different couples who visit the venue through summer and autumn. Kim marvelously crafts the warm and brisk air of a cafe probably located in a quiet neighborhood in Seoul, spending quite some time capturing the tables, the cups and saucers and the portraits of the diverse customers visiting the venue. Strangers come and go, having conversations on everything from getting loans to finding the right person. Spoken language is not the only means of conversation in the cafe, with a group of lively girls who use sign language appearing to be regulars. The first vignette features "Pachinko" star Kim and Joo Joong-hyuk, as Yoo-jin, a young woman who wears a broken watch gifted by a relative, and Hyeon-oh, a young man fascinated with the small world that e
