Becoming imperceptible and

intimacy in Bin-Jip
Explanation,goals and methodology taken:
It is always a risk trying to define a film as a metaphorical film, insofar
recognizing it first with that category we could make a lot of tricks when analyzing
its components, and specially, referring the sense of the plot and it can turn into a
collection of over-interpretations. The signifier in the film has the most of times, in
an enormous extent, symolic content that the !acanians call the Imaginary. This
Imaginary has een offer to us in films since the eginning of cinema ut it is
ecoming more and more usual in modern cinema due to the particular treatment
and the direction that this cinema took from the eginning. This direction was took
chiefly to avoid the rest of directions that were overloaded and then ended up
eing unsignificant and not due to a random selection. It"s difficult to tell where a
fiction wants to tell any truth using metaphors and when the truth itself, the film
itself its a metaphor. #owever, even taking account that, here I"m going to do a
little explanation aout what we can consider in a approximate way, a
metaphorical film to the point that it would e easy and clear to recognize the
metaphorical sense within films and differentiate it among per example the
message in the film or the ideological ackground that appears eventually after
analyzing it.
$hen we talk aout metaphors we talk aout how the metaphor works, how it
creates a distinct discursive space that its not a description or a interpretation or
anything else. %o then we should notice as well that metaphors runs within two
sides, the signified and the signifier, eing the prior the one that could e
discussed aout and could e su&ective and the latter that it is &ust a sort of
relation, a formal instance that we can frame in some way. In the case of modern
films it seems for some people that if the films it"s difficult to understand or even to
feel then it is metaphorical or &ust experimental.
'or someone familiarized with cinema and poetry it happens in the opposite way(
we can notice that if the theme is very raw and the plot is crystal clear then it can
e also very metaphorical or connotative ecause the connotation it"s driven
through, not only y the images and scenes )that rings with them only partial
metaphors* ut with film on its own, with all its components mainly driven y the
montage though.
In order to fully &ustify the use and orientation of the concepts in this text we need
to set the perspective of coherency in which these concepts will make sense.
+s ,eleze has notated several times in his ooks, the concepts are &ust tools, the
complete machine can e asolutely useless ut the parts within can e very
helpful, that"s the way he normally uses the concepts of other philosophers and
this image is useful as well not to take ,eleuze"s relation with psychoanalysis too
strictly and neither with others thinkers. #ere it"s not going to e discussed how
,eleuze"s theoretical ackground surpass or continues other theories nor the
psychoanalysis. The only point which really worth to e discussed it"s aout the
-nconscious concept that underlies ,eleuze theories aout cinema which fits
perfectly with the attempts of .im .i-,uk to reach to a enlightment of how the
intimacy is created etween persons.
/ust e said that for ,eleuze, -nconscious its a creative force, not a limitation or
at least not a structural limitation like in 'reud or !acan, and it"s so due to the idea
that he has of the desire, rought y his 0ietzschean influences. The desire that
don"t have any structured or a priori impulse or predetermined direction it has only
one , the 1utside. It is moved y the cosmos and wants to meet it, have an
encounter with the odies with whose forces can do rhizome, and then &oin in the
2ody $ithout 1rgans. It is important here to remark that this 1utside driven desire
means that the -nconscious is not psychological ut cosmical, more related with
3ung way to understand it than with 'reud. That encounters or agenciamientos
rings the differences and growth to the world creating new orders, not aesthetic
orders ut ontological ones as so related with the forms of life. 1n that sense is on
which we want to analyze .im .i-,uk film, Bin-Jip that means empty uildings in
korean. $e are going to use concepts not only crafted y ,eleuze ut with
whoever that could help us to understand what"s going on the film characters,
always comparing with ,eleuze nuances when it would e a must.
Bin-Jip technical rethorics:
+ll Bin-Jip has, in my opinion, a ritual way of developing, it has circularity, a design
made with haits and a deep emotional and ethical meaning that comes out at the
end of the film and in little metaphors used to increase the expression of the
characters.
1nly two words are said in the film y the feminine main actress and none y the
main actor. This is very rare today ut it carry a lot of weight if we consider that
.im .i-,uk is trying to draw our attention to the way that these two characters, that
we don"t know almost anything aout them, are eing related, so we can &ust affirm
here that the ig metaphorical sense of the film is aout how confidence is uilt
etween two roken characters or individuals that are passing trough a moment of
disown and dissolution of their old lives.
This is saying too much as a resume ecause it is only ovious in the case of the
girl that shows sometimes that existential condition )the photo reconstructed,
crying when drinking*. In any case, the technical apparatus, even eing very
pictorially and aesthetically oriented, is always looking after the main idea in the
film telling as much as possile with images aout the increasing intimacy etween
those two persons. 1ne remarkale thing is that, on the contrary as it usually
happens in .im .i-,uk films the scenes are mainly inside homes and when them
are in the outside are always repeating haits and generally focusing on short
travels or the idea of vengeance, there is an exception, when the girl escapes with
him at first they go to a lake, which is the only calm or non violent happening
recorded on the outside, it is 4uite common in .im .i-,uk films to use the water
surfaces as a symmetrical element correlating the mood of the characters, and it
stress the eginning of the silent communication etween %un#wa and Tae-%uk.
The film don"t intend to e predictale or unpredictale, ut the movements of the
camera are very still and soft and its easy to tell where it will go and in which way
when you feel what"s happening etween the characters. Its circular development
seems easy ut its sense is not. %tarting in the house of her and finishing there,
the travels that they do together are visited again y him and, the place where they
kissed, y oth of them, efore they meet in the house of her. $here we find the
most powerful and poetic visual metaphor is on the weighing scale, that when it is
roke at first signs the weight of the two of them 556 7 89:;9 when is fixed and
when they step together in the weighing scale in the last scene and they weight
nothing ecause she had unfixing it, image that give your imagination free rein and
shows the open circularity of the film in that very instant.
The o&ects are very important and create its own semiotic, the semiotic of spiritual
freedom and vengeance( the golf stick, the repetitive mania of the Tae-%uk hitting
the all and the photos that they do on every home, all of these are circular and in
some way very ritualized like the music they always play working not as a leitmotiv
ut a catalyst for action because contrasts greatly whenever it sounds, it is to say, it is clearly not
personalized but forms a soul-motif that feeds the scene passionately without being exhausted
within it. The montage is not really dealing with temporal dimensions ut playing
with another contrast, etween the static state of the rest of characters, their roles,
and apparently sad ut conformist lives and the two main characters that, due to
their way of living, need to e wandering from side to side until the end of the film.
This wandering that ,eleuze says that is typical in modern cinema is here
ritualized, they can move and have their own space everywhere ut in that
particular way that is s4uatting.
The asence of dialogue is the key to understand why to film something this simple
so poetically. The images construct and focus on everything that is significant
moving the camera to the most decisive detail, framing usually what ,eleuze calls
opsign or pure optical scene. #ere, <eirce"s third principle, the relation, is
everywhere, cause there"s always some information running out the scene or
relating with some signals the past )the feet of her when their first kiss and with
she left her husand*. It is clearly, a film of odies, where the characters and their
specific existential determinations oliged them to create the story they create and
it"s all coming from their attitudes, the soer gestus it"s almost the only thing
that we count on to know how the characters are and ecome together. Therefore
we can even asset that the film plot is all around the movements and the evolve of
those movements particularly %un#wa"s ones that will allow her to reach the point
of no-weight, lightness
The value of the o&ects here is not only emotional)pg59,* ut meaningful in its
own sense, like the golf stick that is used repeatedly to take &ustice in its own hands
and as an instrument of torture or as a court of execution. These kind of =elatively
autonomous o&ects, That have the function of symols at times, as well as the dreamlike
relationship etween the environment and the action make this film detor to some
principles typically used in neorrealism. <9 59
It"s easy to see that the secondary characters are &ust topical individuals who has
no role at all except for representing the categories that the society is drifting them
in and where the main characters want to get away from. It is a core that eats
continuously the main characters like pushing them to aandon their
su&ectivization process and pulling them ack to the o&ective world that
sometimes drown or disappear through the imagination or sharing affection. Its &ust
in these moments where the film change its ways and create some of the irregular,
ut constant and with a linking gravitational pull.
+lthough we cannot simplify life with the 'reudian terms principle of pleasure and
principle of reality, we can redraw these principles to fit them with deleuzian way of
think aout the unconscious. It seems ovious that pleasure is not what the main
characters are looking for, and the principle of reality seems very astract to define
what ,eleuze thinks aout the restrictions that can affect the display of desire. 'or
,eleuze, so close to 0ietzsche in this matter, desire goes always eyond the
satisfaction of vital needs ecause desire is not to make survive someone or &ust to
pursue pure pleasure, in the utilitarian or, more roughly, capitalist sense ut to
create and reak the limits to grow as a eing. Thus, the principle of pleasure will
ecome principle of imagination, what will do the desire stronger and outside
oriented, and the second principle would e &ust a lack, ut not ecause desiring
machines have a lack on their own, ut they can fall into non desiring and then
drown into a lack hole.)pg ritornelo*
The husand of %un#wa represents, in a manner perhaps too unsutle, the topic of
ausive husand and the family institution that uilds around himself a house of vacuous
anality and ostentation. The other characters fulfill a function wheter they are couples
,who are on their way to ecoming that model, or their protectors. Is advisale to look here
that while ecoming certain models or haits, in the creative &unction etween Tae-%uk
and %unhwa, imitation is nothing more than a way of escape of prototypical roles )washing
clothes y hand* or a symol of respect ut in the case of the couples, is clearly a
solidification of a topical social hierarchy models.
The power of images is always predominant, which tries to tell us aout all of the
topics of the characters we meet, and the meaning of his attitude, especially the
contrast of the attitudes and the rutality of reactive men, would say 0ietzsche,
who may well have rode the director. $hile there is little narrative twists, when
these twist give space to pop-seeming limit-situations, these are not a climax at all
in front of the seemingly trivial moments, as the metaphorical air that permeates
the entire film turns significant and meaningful every detail, eing this the glue that
sticks all the contents and makes the narrative somewhat solid, more than realistic.
It is important in this connection that we address that the end is open and
unfinished, not ecause things remain to e solved ut ecause it does not really
solve anything or there"s nothing to e solved. This is proaly the core of the
idea of the -nconscious in ,eleuze, the -nconscious is open, is the openness of
the conscious to ecome more than &ust a prolem-solver and it determines the
consciousness from the ottom of the nonsense and the
constant reak of association, so we can say that -nconscious is dissociative and
that"s why the main risk is according to ,eleuze, to try to surpass maniacally the
limits of the time itself, the immanent transcendence, that would result into s4uizo-
ideas or turning into a lack hole.
$e could consider fairly that, what links the two characters is their way to hide
themselves, Tae-%uk from society and %unhwa from her live and the unearale of
her life. <roaly this is, apart from the pure technical details, the matter which
we can index this film into modern films, according to ,eleuze(
In someway something of the image has become too intense. This purpose was
proposed since Romanticism: capture the intolerable, unbearable, the rule of
poerty, and thus be a isionary, ma!e pure ision a means of !nowledge and
action." #pg$$%
$hat is too intense, and so is showed in the most forceful scenes, is the vital
disagreement that the characters have with the society ut not with life, they are
not &udging anyone or &udging generally as the superior men would do. This is
very important to state ecause their silence is, y any means, not due to their
impotence ut their innocence that make them reluctant to &udge or to demand the
impossile. $e will go further on this theme later on.
+nd also, if we have to claim that this movie is romantic we must say it according
to this point, =omantic in the historic-ontological way.
Therefore, after all, the =omanticism is still feeding the mutant roots of cinema
and specially the power of metaphorical thinking, no matter how raw or politically is
displayed.
If >odard says that to descrie is to oserve mutations )pg?8* we can appoint that
this film is purely descriptive ut using the visual metaphors as the way to transmit
the deep meaning of those transformations, the emotional and existential
modulations and chiefly ecause there"s no other way to descrie or &ust show
those changes through a literal description eing so microscopical and surpassing
the topics. This is perhaps the most conflictive point when we intend to index a film
into the category of modern film in its pure more-than-narrative approach, to
4uote ,eleuze aout the relation of metaphor, topic and image(
In fact is the ciili&ation of the topic, where all powers are interested to hide the
images, not necessarily to hide the ery thing but to hide something in the image.
'urthermore, while the image permanently tries to drill the topic, leaing the topic.
It is not !nown how far it can lead a true picture: the importance of becoming
isionary or seer."
$ith that statement is difficult to grasp completely which are the topics eing
civilized or ruling us and how the image is free itself from the laws of the topic. 2ut
according to what we said aout the repressive forces over the -nconscious ,that
has een always a socio-historical configuration and not a mere psychological
locking or astract structure that underlies our way of eing &ust for eing human,
we can uild our clarification relying on this(
(gainst this, the tas! is to identify potential schi&oanalysis
lea!age or pressure lines, affinity coefficients or distance between the molecular
libidinal system and the molar social machines. )eleu&e says that what desire can
blame the power is not prohibition but that it brings it into action and forces it to
moe through certain streams and images."#pg*+,%
+gainst what@ I think that not only against old psychoanalysis and old ways of
understand the power of the -nconscious ut of course also against the way the
<ower can control or redirect the desire or the potentia of the pure image. +t the
same time as the pure images produce a certain leakage on the topics that
sometimes wrap them, these gaps need to come out metaphorically, relating
themselves with the outside, with his interior forces or &ust with some deep vital
intuition)pg ?A* ecause metaphors are not trying here to connote a narrative line
or a topic, they appear &ust to show that the narrative itself is not enough and
needs to e surpass to reach the invisile point that they are constructing, not
even a new category or relation etween categories ut a way of eing or a way of
ecoming, the result of eing in a particular state or mood that cannot e displayed
y only narrative methods. In this film in particular, we can affirm that the visual
metaphors create a igger metaphor, the film itself, the metaphors are not working
as hints to narrate anything that would ecome eventually literal, they create an
image-time poetry within it.
1f course we need to recognize that like In every film, is created y montage and
within it rules the sensory-motor develops the scenes in its three modes, image-
action, image-affection and image-relation ut as ,eleuze explains, it does not
means that the film avoid the organic rule of description, ut if the crystalline rule
dominate the film itself is ecause of the non-finished metaphor that run all through
the film reaks apart the rest of the descriptive or narrative manners that are used
&ust pragmatically to turn out the film comprehensile. In my opinion sometimes
,eleuze reacts too much seduced y the new technical language of 96"s and ;6"s
cinema and he does not consider that much the way the director or the
screenwriter selects and develops the plots that could had an additional time
dedicated to such an important concern, historically speaking.

Tae-%uk, ecoming imperceptile
+l principio es dudoso si el persona&e principal es %un#wa o Tae-%uk por4ue, aun4ue se
le dedi4ue mas tiempo a 4ue sepamos 4uien es la chica, y 4ue de hecho %un#wa es el
persona&e mas redondo en tBrminos literarios, pues es 4uien realmente pasa por un
proceso en el 4ue la ritualidad de Tae-%uk le trasmite la dosis de confianza y
revalorizaciCn 4ue necesitaa, el vector del proceso es Tae-%uk y ese vector actDa tanto
como para %un#wa como en el film en general como un efecto incorporal, trasmitidos por
lektosignos y noosignos constantemente involucrados en la acciCn narrativa. <odEamos
decir 4ue Tae-%uk no es propiamente un persona&e si no mas ien un persona&e
conceptual, a4uello de lo cuFl 4uiere halar la imagen misma cuando se liera del
movimiento narrativo y entra en el plano de inmanencia del tiempo transmitido en la
imagen pura. +sE, Tae-%uk hace devenir a %un#wa por ser el mismo la imagen del devenir
imperceptile 4ue con sus hFitos construye el espacio haitale para el deseo, para 4ue
%un#wa pueda volver a creer en el mundo, a esta creencia y al proceso de acercamiento
o ale&amiento de esa creencia la llamaremos intimidad. Gsa intimidad es provocada por la
potencia de lo imaginaciCn dentro del plano de inmanencia y alcanzando el plano de
consistencia, de la uniCn con el plano de inmanencia en un proceso 4ue ,eleuze llama
devenir-imperceptile. Gste devenir imperceptile es, como casi todo concepto en
,eleuze, un movimiento hacia la apertura del mundo, hacia la apertura del horizonte de lo
real y hacia la indiscerniilidad de lo real con lo imaginario, lo real con lo virtual y el
horizonte de la consciencia como intervalo con las posiilidades deseantes del
inconsciente como paso al margen de las mF4uinas deseantes y fusiCn con la mF4uina
astracta del deseo imaginante. Gs llamativo comproar como Tae-%uk deviene
imperceptile con el tiempo, partiendo de una posiciCn de esconderse, de sentirse a gusto
escondiBndose aprovechando la ausencia de los otros, en el placer del fetichismo del
curioso 4ue no 4uiere ser descuierto. !a soledad de Tae-%uk sin duda un sEntoma del
miedo de Tae-%uk a ser perceptile, a verse parte de la sociedad 4ue le rodea, asE
construye un ritual de hFitos en los 4ue se mira a sE mismo, con cierta disciplina
consigue por lo menos pasar desaperciido, con la menor violencia posile, pero sin
emargo demasiado apegado a sE mismo, a su autopercepciCn. siin emargo esta
autopercepciCn y esta disciplina pueden desemocar en un agu&ero negro 4ue es lo 4ue
ocurre cuando el deseo se hace preso del hFito, del condicionamiento, se molarice. Gsto
se ve claramente cuando no 4uiere de&ar de &ugar al golf, como tFctica defensiva y acaa
matando a una mu&er. !legados al momento en el 4ue Tae-%uk es acusado, Bste
recapacita y se da cuenta de 4ue ya es un fantasma de derecho, pues nadie puede
comprender por4ue se comporta como lo hace, no tiene ningDn mCvil y a esta punto de
superar su propio nexo sensoriomotor %u ligereza, su soriedad y su inocencia lo han
llevado, pese a su devenir minoritario, a ser imperceptile, a ser uno mFs, un uen tipo.
H asE lo Dnico 4ue necesita para completar su devenir es hacerse visualmente un
fantasma, y asE disfrutar de su capacidad vidente con la persona a la 4ue 4uiere 4ue ha
superado gracias a Bl los condicionamientos humanos 4ue la ataan a la impotencia, 4ue
la mantenEan su deseo y su intimidad cristalizados. H 4ue le han ayudado a Bl a romper
consigo mismo.
Conclusin
El cine tambin puede deshacerse de los condicionamientos humanos de otra manera, no slo para
descender al universo material de las imgenes-movimiento, sino para elevarse hacia dimensiones
del tiempo, del espritu y del pensamiento liberadas de las exigencias de la percepcin y de la
accin pragmtica! Es lo "ue #eleuze llamar $cine de vidente%, capaz de producir imgenes
directas del tiempo &imgenes-tiempo' ms all del movimiento
()
! *#nde y cmo surgen estas
imgenes+ ,nte todo, indicar "ue no estamos fuera del plano de las imgenes-movimiento, es decir,
del plano de inmanencia! -a posibilidad de este tipo de imgenes surge sobre este plano, all donde
la $imagen viva% o el $centro de indeterminacin%, "ue como ya vimos se trata de una imagen
especial, puede relacionarse con el tiempo como duracin o con el todo!
El estudio sobre el cine supone un cambio de perspectiva en el tratamiento de la imagen por parte
de #eleuze! -a imagen de.a de ser psicolgica, pierde las connotaciones negativas "ue la ligaban a
la copia o a la representacin, y pasa de la mano de /ergson a formar parte de la realidad material y
a definir el plano de inmanencia, es decir, el campo de exterioridad "ue opera como horizonte del
pensamiento! El plano se concilia ahora con la imagen, por"ue esta 0ltima ha ganado toda suerte de
velocidades y de movimientos, adems de todo tipo de profundidades del tiempo! -a imagen
cinematogrfica, dinmica y temporal, se torna as imagen del pensamiento "ue escapa a todo
dogmatismo!