Unintentional Love Story - Tumblr Posts
Honestly, revisiting this show after The Time of Fever is fascinating because it really starts out feeling like Hotae was the one who left Donghee rather than the other way around. And seeing this line after the show just hits differently. And when an injured Hotae gets brought in and Donghee brings out his first aid kit?
This is agony knowing their backstory, knowing the love that was between them and who rejected who and how heartbroken they both were and the joy they used to bring to each other that they can't even approach right now. Ugh. My entire heart to them.
Hits so differently now. Ugh. I do love prequels. Though I wish we could get a happy ending sequel as well. They deserve joy, damnit.
Honestly, just everything about them is so much more painful with the new knowledge of who they were to each other and who they were together and how that all ended.
Absolutely feral over them now. Hotae finally pushing for what he's wanted for so long (because he's wanted this for so long) and the instant rejection from Donghee out of trauma and I love them so much more on a second viewing and with the new show in mind.
unintentional love story: im from a manga webtoon! have some slapstick comedy. hot guy kabedon! melodrama! everyone seems to be gay? cheesy fun! dead fish kiss! a ring! wink wink there's an idol tee hee happily ever after~~
the time of fever: i'm straight out of your traumatic queer teen memories. everything's bathed in golden light. homophobia is hanging over you everywhere and it's in your house and it's in you. here's a scene about the intersection of desire fear euphoria horror when u make out with a friend and It Means Something. they're looking straight down the camera and no one winks. sometimes someone moves away and that's how it is. you will fuckin CRY
The Time of Fever (Ep. 1-3) visual analysis: The Metamorphosis
Ho-tae: "I woke up to find myself transformed into a monstrous insect, lying in bed"...What is this? A story about a guy turning into a bug? Dong-hee: If I turned into a bug one day, would I still be Kim Dong-hee or just a bug?
From this piece of dialogue and the cinematography alone I know The Time of Fever is going to cause me a lot of pain. The only way to describe its style is palpable.
The moment our two main characters, Kim Dong-hee and Go Ho-tae, appear together, we can see the friction and unnamed longing between them.
Notice how often the first episode uses shots with three distinct compositional layers to provide depth and complexity to the relationships portrayed on screen:
In most of these shots, the composition places Dong-hee in the background with Ho-tae on another layer completely--they're distant and never quite aligned on what they want out of the relationship. Despite how these two characters were brought together by their mothers' friendship--I love how the second screenshot uses their bodies in the foreground to frame Dong-hee and Ho-tae--it's that very connection that also creates a wall between them. Although Ho-tae is excited about rekindling their friendship after moving away two years prior, Dong-hee doesn't want to betray his aunt's trust by admitting his romantic feelings for him.
And so he recedes into the background, alone and inscrutable.
The fact that Dong-hee also compares himself to Gregor from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis hits like a sucker punch.
Like Gregor, Dong-hee lives a sort of transient and almost functionalist lifestyle. After being kicked out of his home by his abusive father, he focuses on his school work and trying to get by. He is isolated and his queer awakening only makes him feel more disoriented and misunderstood--he feels like Gregor in his insect form.
And yet we still see moments where he allows himself to yearn for something more and how Ho-tae begins to do the same.
(Side Note: I love love love the show's use of backlighting to highlight the lines of the actors' bodies. It's so simple but intimate and erotic as if the camera is acting like Dong-hee's artist-eye trying to memorize Ho-tae's muscular beauty.)
One of my favorite stylistic choices of The Time of Fever is how it uses close-ups to represent the characters' subjective POV and desire.
Like Dong-hee's sketches, these shots are the fragments of everyday life that are so small yet feel oh so significant while on the path towards self-discovery.
They're gloriously tactile, the shallow depth of field eliminating extraneous detail, allowing us to experience the heady excitement of accidentally grazing your crush's skin or looking into their eyes during a rainstorm.
I don't think I've seen desire that achingly displayed in a hot minute.
And so it makes sense that as Ho-tae begins to undergo his own metamorphosis and understand his own feelings, we see more and more visual parallelism in how their desire manifests.
(Side Note: The second screenshot above is such a gorgeous shot. That inky black negative space not only showcases Ho-tae's gaze at Dong-hee's lips but also his reaction to the realization that hits him. Great 2 for 1.)
I can't wait to see what visual storytelling the next three episodes bring.
