Single’s Inferno Season 3 (Netflix)

Bae Jiahn: “What if I fall for multiple people at the same time? “What if multiple people confess their feelings for me simultaneously? What one might have fantasized became a reality for Lee Gwan-hee, a contestant of Netflix’s Single’s Inferno Season 3. He said that if the size of his heart was 100, Choi Hye-seon, his first date at Paradise—in contrast with Inferno, where the living conditions are harsh; only those who become a couple can go to Paradise and enjoy its luxuries like gourmet food and pool dates—scored 33; Yun Ha-jeong, his second Paradise date, scored 33, same as Kim Gyu-ri, whom he didn’t have a chance to talk to. Lee even mentions he would reserve 1 point for new possibilities. It would be exhausting enough to choose among the three within just ten days, but he even looks forward to and dreams of meeting someone new. Sure enough, right after his first conversation with Cho Min-ji, a new participant, Lee Gwan-hee remarks during his interview that Cho seems to be his ideal type. “Now it’s 25% each (from 33%).” The panel burst into laughter as Lee Gwan-hee once again gives out a piece of his mind after conversing with her.

HANHAE explains that Single’s Inferno isn’t a program where contestants focus their feelings solely on one person. An Min-young, a contestant who nearly became an official couple with Lee Jin-seok, whines, “I don’t think the others will pick me,” and tells Lee Jin-seok that she wants to get to know more about others. Her honesty stops Lee Jin-seok’s from expressing his feelings exclusively to her, and it’s only after he goes to Paradise with another girl that An Min-young belatedly realizes her own feelings and tries to win him back. Lee Gwan-hee says that he can’t stop caring about Choi Hye-seon because she was his “first” date at Paradise, while An Min-young says that “three days” wasn’t enough to be sure of her feelings. On the other hand, there’s a couple who give certainty to each other even without having had the chance to converse properly due to timing differences. Is love really a matter of timing? Or is it the culmination of your words and actions? Those who’ve joined Single’s Inferno with the confidence that they can win anyone’s heart find themselves experiencing both Paradise and Inferno multiple times a day. Welcome to the chaotic Single’s Inferno where people know “how to flirt” but not what their true feelings are.

No Bears

Jeong Seohui (Cinema Journalist): Jafar Panahi’s camera shoots at the traditions of an Iranian border village: where a woman’s marriage partner is decided the moment her umbilical cord is severed, and engagements are arranged when a woman’s hijab is pulled by a stranger. Jafar, who is banned from leaving the country, directs and remotely films No Bears, while also playing himself in it. He crafts a story using “the real lives” of Zara (Mina Kavani) and Bakhtiar (Bakhtiar Panjeei), the Turkish lovers planning to seek asylum in France. In real life, Jafar Panah is an Iranian dissident who has been sentenced to prison and banned from making movies after attending a memorial service for a student who was shot to death during a protest. In order for the director within the film and the couple inside the film- within-a-film to defy feeling “trapped, with no future, no freedom,” they must either flatter smugglers or resort to thievery, stealing passports of innocent people. Even when the director’s obsession over addressing injustice through his creative work and Zara’ s relentless endurance of “imprisonment and torture” results only in disguised identities, Jafar doesn’t stop filming. He’s a fierce accuser who specifies every detail of the suffering process and seeks to subvert it in a different way. But then, he finds himself having abandoned ethics, and the film ends with him mounting the scaffold without compromise. There are no bears. Using a villager’s statement, “Stories are made up to scare us. Our fear empowers others,” as the title, the director clearly delivers the message of what can devour people. In his attempt to safeguard human dignity through violation, he seems to be asking you back: What can a film be? Can it ever be something? If escaping is the best one can hope for, then what should I do? No Bears. It’s not silent at the end.

Kang Asol - From Where No One Is, To Where Everyone Is