Architecture+101

=**//Architecture 101 (2012)//**=

The film is about a man and woman who are first loves to each other and meet again 15 years later. Seungmin is a lively but shy boy who just got into college. He meets a music student, Suhyun in an introduction to architecture. Although he falls in love at first sight and gets along with her, he fails to express his feelings towards her in words and grows away from her because of small misunderstanding.15 years later, Suhyun suddenly visits Seungmin and asks him to design and build her a house.
 * **The plot of the film (what the character wants):**

Seungmin is a coward in his first love; young Seungmin is not proud of himself and of his love to Suhyun because of his poverty. Therefore, when he watches a wealthy and popular senior flirting with drunk Suhyun, he hides and runs away instead of stopping the senior. Ignoring his pure heart, he just regards Suhyun as a materialistic girl. After Seungmin grows away from her, Suhyun starts to compromise with reality. She gives up her dream for announcer and marries a wealthy man who she does not sincerely love. She eventually gets divorced and suffers from her pointless life. All of sudden, she thinks of her first love Seungmin and misses her past innocent days. She visits Seungmin and asks him to build a house to heal her hurt mind with recollection of her first love and to have a chance to remodel her life. During construction of Suhyun's house, Seungmin removes a stain in his first love that he became small in front of poverty and acted as a coward, so when he marries a wealthy woman, he does not become daunted and starts independent marriage in the U.S. without any financial aid from his father-in-law. During the construction, Suhyun reveals that she also liked him before and reminisces about the past days. During reminiscence about the past, she remembers her major in piano at college and makes a comeback in her life as a piano teacher. The motif of the film is people's nostalgia for memories of first love, and the theme of the film is that everyone is someone's first love. It implies that everyone has memories of their fist loves and feels little comfort from those memories when living hard lives.
 * **The theme of the film (what the character needs)**

The tone of the film is very nostalgic. Bright but dim lighting and slow background music arouse an emotion of loneliness among the audience. Actions of the actors and props of old clothes and CD player remind the audience of feelings of young love.
 * **The tone of the film (how the film makes you feel, or the emotional content)**

__Mise-e____n-Scene__ __1__ __& 2. Costume__: throughout the film, Suhyun's shoes and makeups change. As she reminisces about the past and decides to live a meaningful life again, she puts lighter makeup and wears lower hills as she did in the past when she was a freshman in the college. The director intentionally directed so to visualize her changes after she reunites with her first love, Seungmin. It enhances conveyance of the theme that she becomes less obsessed with worldy success, less conscious of the others' eyes, and instead she realizes what she had really dreamed of and wanted to do.



__3. Props:__ in the film, things that are no longer used today appear in several closed-up shots. The CD player and film camera are used as plot devices & props that connect the main characters, and are often placed in the corner. This placement of the props and emphasis on the props arouse analog sensibility and highlights the nostalgic and retrospective tones of the film.

__4. Framing:__ in the film, Suhyun and Seungmin are often framed side by side in medium shots. It shows close relationship between them. It also emphasizes a fact that they are at the same age and classmates in Introduction to Architecture class, thus highlighting their young love. Furthermore, at the beginning of the film, Suhyun and Seungmin only sit next to each other, but as the film develops, they share earphones or do pinkie-swear. This shows further build of strong bonds in their relationship. As they share earphones, they talk about their families and pasts, and they do pinkie-swear to promise to meet when the first snow falls.

__5. Framing:__ this framing of the scene represents how Seungmin sees Suhyun. With beautiful trees and sunlight at the background, Suhyun looks beautiful and precious. This shot is taken at worm's eye view to show how Seungmin regards Suhyun; he likes and respects her, so he always cares what she says and tries his best to give her good impressions.

__6. Acting:__ acting of young Seungmin was excellent in conveying the character's emotions towards his immature love. He well demonstrates how he falls in love with her at first sight, how deep he is into her as time passes, and how much he feels the sorrow of parting when he misunderstands relationship between Suhyun and the senior. The director's decision to ask the actor show these actions is to emphasize how the main character feels emotions of first love and gets hurt by the farewell, and to develop the main motif of the film, memories of first love.

__7. Framing:__ In the end of the film, after Suhyun's house is built, Suhyun goes up to the rooftop and looks down the sea. This scene is juxtaposed to another scene in the beginning of the film, in which Suhyun and Seungmin go up to the rooftop of a building and looks down the Seoul city. In both scenes, the main characters are positioned to see scenery at some high places, and taken by long shots, having the background in front of them. This type of placement of the main characters conveys a sense that the main characters consider something about their dreams and have certain degrees of independence and free will in their lives. The scenery stretching out in front of them establishes very calm and peaceful tones. Likewise, the scene of Suhyun on the rooftop gives a sense that her mind has been stabilized as before when she and Seungmin went on the rooftop of the building and looked down Seoul.

__8. Framing:__ <range type="comment" id="404728856_9">the director intentionally framed Seungmin in positions that may make him seem very weak and inferior. </range id="404728856_9">After the senior points out that Seungmin is wearing fake Guess T-shirt and shows off his house in rich province, Seungmin sits down on the floor showing a hunched figure. This shows how discouraged he is by the reality of his poor living. When Seungmin waits for Suhyun to confess his love and sees the senior flirting with drunk Suhyun, he hides behind the wall and steals a glance at them. This positioning of the character shows coward aspect of young Seungmin who cannot dare cut in and stop the senior, and develops the motif of immature love.

__9. Lighting:__ the director utilizes different lighting to emphasize changes of the main characters after time passes on purpose. When young Suhyun and Seungmin drink, it is directed to seem very fresh and innocent by using natural bright lighting in that scene. However in the scene that the adult characters reunite and drink, the setting is inside and the lighting is very dim and relatively dark<range type="comment" id="404728856_10">. It is done to emphasize the contrast between young main characters and old main characters. As time passes, they have changed; they have been less innocent and hopeful as they once were before.</range id="404728856_10">

__10. Framing & lighting:__ this scene is when Seungmin sees the senior and drunk Suhyun, and walks back to his house. This scene is taken at between medium distance to longer distance, between medium shot to long shot. The dark lighting and his positioning in the middle underscore his loneliness and isolation. Since Seungmin has always been with Suhyun throughout the movie, this walking alone at night well emphasizes how much he feels distant from <range type="comment" id="404728856_11">Suhyun and how much he feels isolated from the rest of the world as Suhyun has been the whole world for young Seungmin.</range id="404728856_11">