Height of the Wave
(Pa-go)

Nam Yeonsu, a police officer going through a divorce, is transferred to a maritime office located on an island. She is invited to a welcome party where the village head tells her that he is waiting for the official approval to brand his island a choice tourist destination. This news, as the officer soon discovers, is no more than a smokescreen to hide the obscure relationship between the island’s mostly male inhabitants and the young Yae-un, who has grown up alone on the island ever since her parents were lost at sea. Park Jung-bum’s third film unfolds like an inquiry whose purpose is yet to be revealed, where reality becomes in- creasingly draped in a thick cloud the closer we approach it, much like some of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s films. A dark film whose complex mystery only thickens as the puzzle comes together, Height of the Wave has a nonetheless troubling tie with Village in the Mist by Im Kwon-taek. AR