#autocorrect insisting NARRATIVELY is not a word rn....

[obscurecurse]

Kim's Balcony

I haven't decided what it all means yet but I'd like to present some figures on Kim cinematography.

It dawned on me yesterday that the first/last of Kim's scenes both take place on the balcony in his apartment. I wanted to revisit these scenes in order to consider the directorial choices because I suspected there might be some subtext there.

1. The first time we as the audience see Kim he is behind a screen, obscured. He's basically in another room from the viewer with the separation of glass and metal. He stands in daylight but there's no lights on in the apartment. We are not shown his face.

Starting with some face-value observations: scenes taking place on this balcony give the viewer a sense of how high up Kim's apartment is, how it overlooks the city, suggesting wealth, status. This is also his fortress, his safe space. He's physically elevated from the city, suggesting otherness - being "above" or isolated from other people. He's always shown alone in his isolated, other place, or starts off alone to be visited only by house staff. (Almost every Theerapanyakun has a scene like this, if memory serves.) Cities don't always have to represent isolation and power, by any means, but in Kim's case I think they do.

Obscuring him like this is purposeful. He is meant to be obscured narratively. (To the point that on the first watch I thought he was going to rise to the occasion of "main villain.") His blurring protects a thread of crucial reverse dramatic irony - because Kim knows way more than all of us for, like, most of the show.

2. But in his last scene he is no longer obscured:

We see him more clearly, both literally and narratively. His motivations were made clear and now they have completely shifted. The screen that previously made him unclear is just out of focus on the edge of this shot.

3. And then we see him even closer in his video for Chay. The camera just keeps zooming in on his framing, scene for scene. (When Chay watches Kim's video he is also set against the city, btw, in similar isolated conditions. Hmmmm. So close yet so far in their impasse.)

4. This extended shot after he sends the video does not really add to my meta but it's really a long shot of him looking emo and holding the guitar. I am curious as to whyyy he is always set against the context of the city in these shots? What is the significance there? To remind us his family owns the city?

But thennnnNNNN:

5. ....???!!!!?!?!?!!? Kim walks out of frame. I'm sure he needs to go pour a shot after being so vulnerable with Chay, but narratively, narrativelyyyyyy... He's abandoned his post! This was the place he started, and he no longer needs (or maybe even wants) to put himself in that position. HmmmMMMMMMMMM.