Ambience takes center stage at BIFF opener 'The Table: Day and Night'

As director Kim Jong-kwan noted, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) opening film, "The Table: Day and Night," is dedicated to the beauty of the fleeting little moments in life.

The romantic anthology film, starring a solid ensemble of actors including Kim Min-ha, Shim Eun-kyung and Han Sun-hwa, portrays the conversations between four different couples who visit the venue through summer and autumn.

Kim marvelously crafts the warm and brisk air of a cafe probably located in a quiet neighborhood in Seoul, spending quite some time capturing the tables, the cups and saucers and the portraits of the diverse customers visiting the venue.

Strangers come and go, having conversations on everything from getting loans to finding the right person. Spoken language is not the only means of conversation in the cafe, with a group of lively girls who use sign language appearing to be regulars.

The first vignette features "Pachinko" star Kim and Joo Joong-hyuk, as Yoo-jin, a young woman who wears a broken watch gifted by a relative, and Hyeon-oh, a young man fascinated with the small world that exists inside old watches, respectively.

As its title "A Midsummer Night's Dream" suggests, it proceeds in a dreamy and forlorn mood, featuring scenes where they talk about night walks and dreams, which seem to overlap with one another at times without the protagonists being aware of it.

The second story featuring Sang-mi (Han) and Young-min (Chang Ryul) continues with the enigmatic ambience but bursts with energy. A frantic-looking Sang-mi appears at the cafe where Young-min is and mentions how they got tutoring lessons together as middle school students.

In a performance that is mostly driven by Sang-mi's long talks and Young-min's dazed response, she continues to resolutely talk about keeping oneself and not being caught off guard by unseen enemies.

Her seemingly bizarre lines make viewers suspect whether they knew one another in the first place at one point but what appears to be certain is that Sang-mi is firm on protecting and believing people she says are "still ourselves."

The third story, "T.P.A.," stands out with its witty conversations that ping-pong between successful writer Hye-jin (Shim) and ambitious filmmaker Dong-nam (Lee Hee-jun), who is set on making an adaptation of Hye-jin's works.

Shim, who has earned accolades for her acting in South Korea and Japan and starred in the Locarno-winning Japanese film "Two Seasons, Two Strangers," delivers another excellent performance as an anxious yet plucky writer. Lee returns that energy with his wonderfully sly and playful acting that makes the story one of the most engaging conversations in the film.

The final story tones down the energy by portraying the bittersweet breakup of young lovers -- K-pop idol trainee Na-kyung (Jeon So-young) and her boyfriend Jong-su (Kim Dong-hwi).

While the stories are physically set at the single venue -- except for scenes in the first story that show Kim taking a nighttime walk -- the mood of the stories quickly diverges, from poetic to offbeat, to daring and to tender.

In fact, although conversations drive the film, it is not certain lines from the dialogue, but the ambience and energy that comes from the exchanges that dominate it. A significant amount of background music adds to that emphasis on ambience.

The film comes to an end with the film adaptation of Hye-jin's story being shot at the cafe where she met Dong-nam, and the final scene fading out like a blackout in a theatrical play.

For audiences eager to immerse themselves in a stroll across varying moods, "The Table: Day and Night" will be a delightful watch, but for those seeking more of the interesting characters Kim has sculpted, it may feel too fleeting.