"Never fully believe what you see on screen with music"

Meeting your heroes doesn't happen every day. Fortunately, our little country has a film festival, Belgium's largest, which has been shining an exceptional spotlight on film music for decades. This year, Film Fest Gent focused on the thriving South Korean cinema scene, which meant special attention was also paid to the film music inseparably linked to it. So at De Bijloke, the cream of the crop of Korean film music was showcased during the concert Korean Composers. But first came that meeting…

In South Korea, he's absolutely a household name, the interpreter assured me after our conversation. Someone who would easily be recognized and stopped on the street in Seoul. Even the young South Korean living in Ghent found it a unique opportunity to finally meet the man in person. As with Asian names, it's no easy feat for an uninformed Westerner to get the correct spelling or pronunciation right. Here too, the friendly translator lent a helping hand… Young-wuk Jo (January 1, 1962) – the surname is pronounced "Cho" and is therefore often written that way (albeit incorrectly) – has been the steady composer of his compatriot Chan-wook Park for many years now, the acclaimed director of films such as Oldboy (2003), part of the so-called Vandgeancetrilogy, and The Handmaidand (2016). The intense collaboration between these two can rightfully be compared to that between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann – a composer Jo deeply admires – or Federico Fellini and Nino Rota. Park's most recent film, Decision to Leave (2022), is currently in theaters and once again Jo is his musical support and backbone. At the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the film was awarded the prize for best director (directing award). In doing so, Park joins the same ranks as Mike Leigh, David Lynch, Michael Haneke, and our Dardenne brothers.

Young-wuk Jo's trophy cabinet is already quite full, though his accolades have been mainly limited to his home country. A result of never having collaborated with a European director? It doesn't diminish his merits in the slightest, which are particularly remarkable for someone self-taught. Yet during our interview, a good-natured Jo will emphasize several times that what he does is really teamwork. Besides himself, the composer can rely on four other talented people, he tells us, and judging by the young guy who listens in during our conversation and taps away on his phone, they're a very young crew. "Next time you might just be here for him," he says like a father figure. What is certain in any case: it's hard to imagine a better training ground for the aspiring film composer. Jo has been spending more time in Belgium lately, particularly at Galaxy Studios in Mol, where the post-production took place for his latest score for the film Hunt by Jung-jae Lee. He was assisted in this by maestro Dirk Brossé, the conductor who will take the podium again this evening during the Korean Composers concert at De Bijloke. "A great honor and something I'm really looking forward to," says the composer about it. Because it turns out that in a South Korean concert hall, his music has never been performed before. It's hard to believe, just like the explanation Jo gives for it, which once again confirms the extraordinary Asian work ethic. Apparently, with all the hustle and bustle of so much work, it just never happened.

Obsessive

The sixty-year-old Young-wuk Jo admits he doesn't excel at any instrument, yet he has already written dozens of film scores. What does he consider, setting aside all the praise and awards, his most successful music? The interpreter does her work diligently, after which the man throws both hands in the air with a laugh, as if it were an impossible question. Of course, he names his most recent production for Decision to Leave". "Because when I look back at my past films, I always stumble upon little mistakes. But with the music for Decision to Leave I haven't had time yet to critically examine my own work," he says with a wink. Jo looks up to Western music, he says – as a teenager he was especially keen on rock. It's something he grew up with in South Korea and that almost obsessively forms part of his personality. As an example, Jo points to The House of the Rising Sun, a monster hit by The Animals from the mid-1960s". Today he's a fan of Collegium Vocale Gent and far from the only one on the peninsula with an interest in classical music. Partly due to the dictatorship in his own country after World War II and then the Korean War (1950-1953), the country's own tradition was wiped out and what came from Europe and the United States was regarded for a long time as more modern and thus 'better'. That also applied to music. "Traditional Korean music isn't really suitable for the films made in one's own country. With classical music, on the other hand, you can express much more emotion."

Jo is a great lover of woodwind instruments, something that comes to beautiful expression in "Fatality", a track on the original soundtrack of Sympathy for Lady Vandgeance (2005) with a simple but oh so beautifully developed solo for oboe". How did he put this and other music such as "The Last Waltz" – the poignant end credits of Oldboy – on paper? "Oldboy is a film with quite a few brutal action scenes. The slow, dancing music is meant as a pleasant contrast and to connect those different moments with each other. That's why the score features many waltzes."" It's an approach that seamlessly aligns with the motto of the film composer: "Never complete the image with music what you see on screen." So separate the visual and auditory from each other. It may seem counter-intuitive, but you should know that the music for Oldboy was already there before a single frame of the film was shot. "Fatality", on the other hand, apparently is a piece that didn't immediately ring a bell with its author. Fortunately, it's on my phone, and we listen to the beginning together. "For Lady Vandgeance I wanted the opposite of Oldboy": something more emotional, with influences from Baroque music, but also from traditional Korean music." The music builds up in layers, with each group of instruments being brought in one by one. Right now, the finishing touches are being put on the soundtrack for The Sympathizer", an HBO miniseries once again directed by Park with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role.

Korean gala concert

That same evening, Dirk Brossé and Brussels Philharmonic will make their appearance in the concert hall of De Bijloke for the gala concert Korean Composers, a tribute to Jo and some of his composing compatriots. The program booklet demonstrates what he had emphasized earlier that day. Without exception, each of his six pieces credits a second composer by name. For the captivating "My Tamako, My Sookee" from The Handmaidand it's for example Dae-sung Hong (b.1982), and again the theme is first presented by a combination of woodwind players. With "Cries and Whispers" from Oldboy", written together with Ji-soo Lee, we hear as the final number one of the other waltzes from that score: first solo on piano, then by a full orchestra. By that time, music from Decision to Leave ("Seorae"), A Taxi Driver ("Beyond the Darkness", 2017) and Thirst ("Under the Light", 2009) had already passed, while the portrait started with the thrilling theme from the Netflix series Narco-Saints (2022). Or more precisely with a brief conversation with a somewhat emotional and overwhelmed Young-wuk. The entire setup of this concert beautifully demonstrated how varied South Korean film music truly is: from the classically symphonic "The Belt of Faith" by Jae-il Jung, a work from the tragicomic award-winner Parasite (2019) which was brought to life with some fine dialogues between several orchestra leaders, via the mesmerizing sound of the daegeum, a traditional bamboo transverse flute, during "Beyond the Years" from " from Sopyonje (1993) to the tangy guitar music of Byeong-woo Lee, the other honored guest present who also took to the stage as a performer. Lee stood out not only with his distinctive glasses and a pointed, acoustic guitar that James Hetfield of Metallica would certainly be jealous of, but also with his refined picking in numbers like " and Dance" and "

MUSIC: Jae-il Jung, Young-wuk Jo, Byeong-woo Lee, Hye-seung Nam, Soo-chul Kim, Mowg

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