프로그램 노트

Program Note

The film sheds light on two women who lived through the era of Japanese imperialism under various names. These women, both named Yoshiko, are Yamaguchi Yoshiko, a Japanese woman who lived as a Chinese actress, and Kawashima Yoshiko, a former Qing Dynasty princess raised as a Japanese woman. The film projects fragments of their lives through the metaphors of Venus’ other two names, the Evening Star and the Morning Star. In the archival footage projected onto the ruins of buildings and spaces, their lives are not so much informationalized or narrativized as they are simply projected, passed on, and made to float. At times, their lives are separated, fragmented, and symmetrically arranged, drifting with no place to settle, and the film constructs an image of their lives as projections. Above all, these lives in history occupy as the stage of a fleeting phantasmagorie.(*Above all, these lives, within history, serve as the stage for a fleeting phantasmagoria.) Thus, the history before cinema and the individual story of history intertwine, projecting each other as “undoubtedly existed, yet a cleverly staged imaginary product.” Simultaneously, like the film, life and history seem to accumulate, only to vanish without a trace. And with one final emphasis, the film says: “It is impossible to prevent the audience from interpreting the film in ways different from the intentions of the director.” (LEE Seungmin) ​