Next Up… Joy Song

Not your typical filmmaker, Song views a world through a lens that’s uniquely her own.

- Wayne Cheong

Everybody is a story. If you want to quickly get a sense of someone, quiz them on their film diet. And so, when it comes to Joy Song, who looked like she hailed from the Goth/ art clique in secondary school, the last film that the filmmaker watched was The Wailing, a Korean horror movie that follows a detective investigating a spate of random killings. Aside from the VFX and the acting, Song zeroes in on the story structure, marvelling at how Korean films don’t ‘follow the three-act structure’ that she was taught. “There are several storylines that go all over and yet, somehow,” she continues, “it’s streamlined that it still makes sense.”

This upending of conventions is what appeals to her. This also informs us what sort of filmmaker Song is.

JOY SONG: It’s like a play on the unexpected and that’s thrilling because you’re pushing the boundaries of what is believable and what is expected.

ESQUIRE: Is there such thing as a bad film?

SONG: No such thing. But a boring film is something that does not play with the potential of the medium. I grew up on a lot of art-house cinema and I love to play and experiment with the content. Because at the end of the day, film is supposed to be a sensory experience; it should change the viewing experience into something more visceral. I’m very into surrealism. I’m into creating and transporting you to a new world because sometimes reality for me is not enough. And I like to create new dimensions and flesh them out. Being experimental is a huge thing for me. So, being known as a ‘director’ doesn’t encapsulate what I do.