Revivre - Im Kwon-taek's 102nd film premieres at the Korean Film Festival this week

Walking into the Event Cinema on George Street, surviving the smell from the Subway fast food outlet, heading for the box office, I noticed a desk surrounded by people in indecipherable tee shirts which on a second glance turned out to be the information point for the 6th Korean Film Festival in Australia. The attractive little program book on offer lists twenty films which will screen in Sydney and Melbourne with decreasing numbers in Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. It started in Sydney just a few hours later and I can strongly recommend the film screening in Sydney at 6.00 pm on Friday 14th Revivre (South Korea, 2014), (Melbourne on 4 September) directed by the veteran Im Kwon-taek. Mr Im made his directing debut in 1962 and this is his 102nd film. It premiered at Venice last year and I saw it in Vancouver. In my view it’s a masterpiece, not least for the astonishing lead performance by veteran Ahn Sung-ki. All that may not be the reason it seems to have been bypassed by the major festivals. 

Here is Tony Rayns program note from last year’s VIFF web site.