The Host

Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea 2006 (119 min.)
Thursday, October 12, 7:00 pm

Opening the inaugural San Francisco International Animation Showcase is a live action feature—with a twist. At first glance, it might seem strange to watch The Host as part of an animation series, because the beginning contains no animation whatsoever. Instead, we see a man eerily and illegally disposing of hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde and other toxins. The Korean title of the film, Gwomeul, more closely translates to “the creature,” and of course, viewers can feel said creature brewing in the troublesome opening scene. It doesn’t take too long before the 30-foot-long squid/fish thing appears and begins terrorizing the citizens of Seoul. The creature, animated by San Francisco vanguard visual effects team the Orphanage, highlights the aesthetic and dramatic potential of today’s animation techniques. It is seamlessly integrated into the live-action scenes, allowing for a fully wrought and worrisome monster to interact directly with the human characters and real environments.

The Orphanage’s masterful work, paired with the precise, beautiful and suspenseful direction of veteran Bong Joon-Ho (Memories of Murder and Barking Dogs Never Bite), made The Host a surprise find and the talk of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. New York Times critic Manohla Dargis hailed The Host as “the best film I’ve seen to date at this year’s festival,” and quickly summarized, “This terrific hybrid-genre fantasy about a mutant creature with a lotuslike mouth and a steady appetite has been alternately described as a monster movie and a science fiction thriller, but is also a comedy, a family drama, a political critique and, at times, a seriously scary freak-out.”

A special presentation by designers at the Orphanage, detailing the production and animation of the creature, will precede the screening. Following the screening, the designers will take questions from the audience.

—Sean Uyehara