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[HanCinema's Film Review] "Clearer Than You Think"

A young man facing the prospect of entering the real world after school mills about in the chilly weather, contemplating death and love with mildly hopeful optimism. A woman with a comically squeaky voice constantly frets about her boyfriend's lack of verbal intimacy. A heavy metal band is thrown into chaos by a bear. A dog escapes from home and explores the world with the help of an unusual new friend.

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"Clearer Than You Think" isn't really a coherent omnibus so much as it is a collection of short films by director Han Ji-won-I. They were all produced at different point in the career of Han Ji-won-I, and while none of them are obviously amateurish in any way, describing them in terms of similarity is mostly meaningless. They're all completely different stories, designed for different purposes, being exhibited in this form mainly because the feature film is the only way to watch this stuff outside the festival circuit.

The animation style is the main unifying thread here. And in this aspect still images are definitely misleading. While in normal profile the characters are in standard realistic shapes, once anyone starts moving everything gets really squiggly. I mean this in a good way. The jumbled lines give "Clearer Than You Think" an extremely tumultuous feel, which proves an apt metaphor for characters with very jumbled emotional states. Any surfer can tell you that there's quite a difference between how riding waves looks and what the experience actually feels like. Han Ji-won-I does excellent work capturing that sense of chaos.

The other three stories are somewhat more subdued. In one we're supposed to trace a character's emotions by the way his face is animated. Not just, you know, normal facial expressions, but the way it morphs into a completely different drawing style. The difference between an adult face and a kid face, if you will, defines his internal conflict regarding growing up when he doesn't really feel like a grown-up.

As far as the bear goes, well, I didn't care for the bear so much. That particular short only has one particularly funny moment, which turns into kind of a mean moment when we find out how far the bear metaphor extends. The adventure of the dog likely has the broadest appeal, in part because there's no dialogue. Just the story of a dog exploring the world, topped off by a rather wild bit of magical realism.

In general terms "Clearer Than You Think" is an easy enough omnibus film to recommend, because animated short films are an unusual genre that doesn't generally get much access in the mainstream. Generally speaking the web is a better format for this than the theater (Naver has been playing around in this arena), but the work of Han Ji-won-I is worth taking in whatever form you can find it. While she's not a master of the craft or anything, at minimum her work is a different, intriguing novelty that's easy enough to relate to emotionally while making good use of the short animated format.

Review by William Schwartz

"Clearer Than You Think" is directed by Han Ji-won-I-I and voiced by Um Sang-hyun, Yang Jeong-hwa, Han Ji-won-I-I and Lee Hong-soo.

A young man facing the prospect of entering the real world after school mills about in the chilly weather, contemplating death and love with mildly hopeful optimism. A woman with a comically squeaky voice constantly frets about her boyfriend's lack of verbal intimacy. A heavy metal band is thrown into chaos by a bear. A dog escapes from home and explores the world with the help of an unusual new friend.

"Clearer Than You Think" isn't really a coherent omnibus so much as it is a collection of short films by director Han Ji-won-I. They were all produced at different point in the career of Han Ji-won-I, and while none of them are obviously amateurish in any way, describing them in terms of similarity is mostly meaningless. They're all completely different stories, designed for different purposes, being exhibited in this form mainly because the feature film is the only way to watch this stuff outside the festival circuit.

The animation style is the main unifying thread here. And in this aspect still images are definitely misleading. While in normal profile the characters are in standard realistic shapes, once anyone starts moving everything gets really squiggly. I mean this in a good way. The jumbled lines give "Clearer Than You Think" an extremely tumultuous feel, which proves an apt metaphor for characters with very jumbled emotional states. Any surfer can tell you that there's quite a difference between how riding waves looks and what the experience actually feels like. Han Ji-won-I does excellent work capturing that sense of chaos.

The other three stories are somewhat more subdued. In one we're supposed to trace a character's emotions by the way his face is animated. Not just, you know, normal facial expressions, but the way it morphs into a completely different drawing style. The difference between an adult face and a kid face, if you will, defines his internal conflict regarding growing up when he doesn't really feel like a grown-up.

As far as the bear goes, well, I didn't care for the bear so much. That particular short only has one particularly funny moment, which turns into kind of a mean moment when we find out how far the bear metaphor extends. The adventure of the dog likely has the broadest appeal, in part because there's no dialogue. Just the story of a dog exploring the world, topped off by a rather wild bit of magical realism.

In general terms "Clearer Than You Think" is an easy enough omnibus film to recommend, because animated short films are an unusual genre that doesn't generally get much access in the mainstream. Generally speaking the web is a better format for this than the theater (Naver has been playing around in this arena), but the work of Han Ji-won-I is worth taking in whatever form you can find it. While she's not a master of the craft or anything, at minimum her work is a different, intriguing novelty that's easy enough to relate to emotionally while making good use of the short animated format.

Review by William Schwartz

"Clearer Than You Think" is directed by Han Ji-won-I and voiced by Um Sang-hyun, Yang Jeong-hwa, Han Ji-won-I and Lee Hong-soo.

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