Filmfestivals.com met up with Boon Joon-Ho at San Sebastian where he presented his feature debut, Barking Dogs Never Bite, which is being screened this month at Chicago and next month at the London Film Festival. As recreational and "manga-like" as it may be (it's certainly not "dog-matic"), Barking Dogs Never Bite nevertheless leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, and testifies to Bong Joon-ho's keen insight into our dog-eat-dog world.

What was the first image that motivated you to make this film?

When I was a kid, maybe eleven years old, I lived in an apartment, just like in the film, and then one day I discovered the corpse of that dog... From then on, I was curious to know who killed that dog or whatever. So I think this is the first image that motivated me...

How deep did you want to peer into Korean society through the script?

I think the description of daily life is of course the surface of the film, but it was not my original intention in making the film. It goes from small happenings in daily life to something very twisted, and then it switches to the grotesque. So daily life was one of the materials to develop my story that way. But I think the grotesque reveals the human. So the film is a kind of circulation between the daily life and the grotesque. It's only when I finalized the details of each character that I could see the social and political issues arise.

Would you say that when the character throws the dog from the roof, he not only throws the dog, he throws himself as well?

Sure, and besides that, in my films, the men get very hysterical! I think, you know, a barking dog is no big thing for a normal man, but what I like to describe with the character of Yoon-ju is the way he collapses, because he has nothing to do, because he gets "kicked" by his wife. I think this kind of character stems from self-repulsion.

Although your film is rooted to some extent in social observation, the look of it is definitely surreal...

You've got a point there, because when we started shooting, everybody was very young, the cinematographer is very young, and our slogan was: "let's make the most detailed daily life material change into the most surreal images." So we really tried to apply this slogan to the mise en scene, the apartment space, the colours, and the camera movements.

Bae Doo-na is a very beautiful young woman. But in the film you make her look very mundane, dishevelled, with no make-up... Was it funny to make her look like that?

You're right (laughs). Many actresses in Korea hate to wear no make up, they want to look shiny! But Doo-nae was great because she had no desire to show off, rather she really threw herself into the character, so I'm really satisfied with her.You know, some of the actresses in Korea even want to have make-up when they are shooting the sleeping scenes. (smiles)

OK, but in Barking Dogs, we don't even see Doo-nae sleep in a proper room, she's always in a kind of shambles, fighting for space (Bong Joon-ho laughs)... Anyway, if she doesn't shine with the make-up, we may say that she shines through the emotions, she's such a kind character. Did you want to show that kind of young woman, caring for people, caring for her neighbours?

Well, I can't say that I actually took the character of Doo-nae from reality. Rather, it is the kind of human person that I really wanted to see in the film. She's simple, pure, even naive, gets cheated, so it made a very interesting contrast to Lee Sung-jae's character. But though the character stemmed from my own desire, I made several interviews with girls doing office work, so as to get a lot of details.

One of the great scenes of the film is that horror tale in the basement, with an almost "urban legend" atmosphere...

Actually, for me that was one of my best sequences (smiles). I was very afraid of it, because it contains a long monologue. I was also afraid of the subtitling problems! The actor who plays the janitor is very well-known, he has a thirty-year TV and film career. I think the core element of that kind of urban legend thing is the fear that Yoon-ju feels about the world. He wants to be a professor, but he has to compromise with the lobby and money thing.

Barking Dogs is an independent movie. But the fact that you co-wrote Phantom the Submarine might point to your desire to go into mainstream movies...

(laughs) Yes, the production of this film was one of the biggest in Korea. But I did not play a major part in the development of this project. My friend had a bigger role as a scriptwriter. Regarding my ambition for the big film, I'm not that kind of person at all. Rather, I can say I'm making films for a living! (laughs) Also, I would like to point out that my film is not an independent film, rather it's a low budget film financed by a big company (Cinema City Service).

Many things have changed in Korea since the first non-military government in 1993. How did you live through these changes as a Korean citizen?

The evolution of the political situation opened a new field of cultural possibilities. But I think that kind of change is a bit slow, one by one, in terms of censorship problems, restrictions, and so on. It always has been going slowly. Under the separation situation, I couldn't see any revolutionary change, because of the stress and pressure brought by the separation structures so it will be difficult to get out of this situation easily.

Robin Gatto