It’ll be difficult to tackle this movie when I’ve only two things to work on:

this article: https://diaboliquemagazine.com/

and this synopsis from the French Wikipedia on “Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours” (1989),

Lucas (Jacques Dutronc), brilliant inventor of a new programming language, learns that he has a rare disease that affects his memory. In a café, he meets Blanche (Sophie Marceau), a young, unhinged woman who fascinates him. She is famous for her impressive hypnosis sessions where she strips naked revealing the darkest secrets of the spectators. These two extraordinary beings live, throughout the film, a passionate, eventful, and tragic love story, where puns and surreal dialogues take the place of words of love.

But let’s try anyway to connect what little I have with the episode.

1. The titles

The original French movie is “Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours” or “My nights are more beautiful than your days.” Note the singular possessive pronoun, “my,” in the English translation. If you were to ask me why “my” nights are more beautiful than “your” days, I could say that there’s less people, less drama, less noise, less interruption, and no traffic to deal with. Lol.

This episode title changed the singular to a plural possessive pronoun. The title is “‘Our’ nights are more beautiful than your days.”

It’s easy to understand how this title applies to Yeonsu and Ung.

Yeonsu had a terrible day because her bestie, coworkers, and boss wouldn’t stop talking about her ex’s dating scandal with a celebrity. Even strangers on the street were gossiping about it. To make it worse, she couldn’t forget about it since NJ’s face was plastered all over the city.

As for Ung, his days weren’t going any better either.

Ung: When I was in school, the owner of the stationery store nearby had a dog. I think it’s name was Jjongjjong. Jjongjjong seemed kind of cold. Jjongjjong was like royalty. It seemed like an amazing life though. So the reason why I’m suddenly bringing this up is…I often think about him these days. The way he decided to cope with his pain. I know it sounded pathetic but I’ve been acting like JjongJjong lately. I don’t think I can ever face something I can’t handle again. So I’ve chosen to do the same. Because nothing will happen if I don’t do anything.

In other words, Ung was acting like someone with post-traumatic stress. He knew that he was avoiding a relationship with Yeonsu, not so much as a response to pain as in anticipation of pain.

On their own, apart from each other, their days weren’t good. But when they agreed to go back together again, at the end of the episode, their nights became beautiful again because they were reunited at last.

2. Word plays

To be honest, I didn’t search long for this French movie online because according to the wiki and the article I cited above, the screenwriter used a lot of paronomasia or puns. I’m not equipped to spot the puns since “la dictée” (dictation) was my weak spot. I’m slow to pick up homonyms in sentences like “Tu te sens mort à cent pour cent sans sang,” (You will feel 100% dead without blood) and “L’auteur a peur des hauteurs” (The author has fear of heights).

In this drama, one of the word plays was when the shopowner said that Jjongjjong went “far away” or 멀리 갔어 (molli gasseo). Ung assumed that the owner was using “far away” as euphemism for “death” and that the dog had passed away. He was about to convey his sympathies when the dog entered the store. It had gone far for its dog walk.

Another joke was on “stress.” NJ’s CEO told her that the company wouldn’t address the rumors and recommended that she spend time with Ung to relieve her “stress.” NJ snapped back that Ung was the cause of her “stress” because of her one-sided love for him.

The meaning of “scandal” was also subverted. NJ wanted to scandalize her own agency as payback for mishandling her scandal.

NJ: My agency might not refute the article. I guess they think that I have something to gain from this. They’re trying to use your good image. So tell everyone it’s not true. Tell them I’m just chasing you around. You need to teach my agency a lesson.
Ung: I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, but wouldn’t that be bad for you?
NJ: Sigh. We should be having a party on a day like this to celebrate the scandal.

Then she dropped off a bottle of wine and a card to celebrate his “first” scandal with a superstar. Scandals aren’t milestones.

There’s another play on the word “fan” or 팬 (“phaen”). When asked by his manager EunHo how to respond to the rumors, Ung said to tell them that he was just a “fan” of NJ. The reporter asked Eunho then if Ung was a sasaeng “fan”. A saesang fan is a stalker. The addition of the word “sasaeng” totally changed the meaning of a fan.

Even the name of the dog Jjongjjong is ironic. The word evokes the image of walking with “quick steps.”

Link: https://www.wordsense.eu/쫑쫑/

I supposed “jjongjjong” sounds like the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

But it’s incongruous to name a dog Jjongjjong when it didn’t like to walk, right?

But to me, the funniest word play on jujube or “dacheu.” That was a pun. Did you hear it? Let me explain.

3. “Dacheu cha”

Yeonsu offered to buy all the daechu from the sidewalk vendor.

Vendor: But what would a young lady be doing with so many “daechu”?
Yeonsu: Jujube tea is good for insomnia.
Vendor: Huh?
Yeonsu: (smiling) So they say.

Lol. Didn’t you wonder why the Vendor sounded surprised? Surely, she knew that daechu is a natural sleeping aid. She sold them.

I say Yeonsu said a pun, and the old lady didn’t get it. To my ears, “daechu” sounded like “da-tchu” or “Date you” in English. And “chaga” sounded like “jag-ya” or a truncated “jagiya” which means “darling” or “babe.”

대추차가
Daechu chaga = “Date you jag-ya”

불면증에 좋대요
bulmyeonjeung-e johdaeyo = “is good for insomnia”

To me, she was punning that to date your darling is a good way to get rid of sleepless nights.

That’s the significance of those daechu to me. They weren’t just some symbolic breadcrumbs that Yeonsu dropped, and Ung discovered on his way home, ala-Hansel and Gretel.

They were a pun for an invitation to date her to remedy his insomnia. Their nights together would be more beautiful than his solitary days…just like the title said.

Just imagine if each daechu represented an invite to date her, how many invitations would this be?

He would have to give in and date her.

To continue, Ung discovered all the daechu drying out at Yeonsu’s place.

He should have realized two things:

a. Yeonsu waited for him inside his home the previous night but didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, NJ dropped off the wine and left a card.

b. on the eve of the Drawing Duel with Nua, Yeonsu lied to him. She told him that she was “told” to give it to him. In truth, it was her own idea to bring him the tea because she was worried about him. She was showing him tender-loving-care.

Then, the grandma grudgingly apologized with a non-apology.

Grandma: If Yeonsu did anything bad to you, it’s all my fault. So don’t hate her too much. We were poor, so I made her grow up to be selfish. It’s my fault that she talks so harshly. And has a nasty temper, too. So if you’re upset at her about something, blame me for it, and don’t hate her.
Ung: Yeonsu’s not like that. That’s not who she is. She’s a good person. She’s so brilliant that I feel that I don’t deserve her.

He realized that, at the time when he was just hating on her, and doing things to get back at her for their breakup, she had shown him patience and thoughtfulness.

Grandma: If you know that then what are you two doing?
Ung: You’re right. I knew I was pathetic, but I guess I’ve hit rock bottom today.

What did he mean he hit rock bottom? I think he was saying that he felt worse than a dog.

4. A “gae” life or a dog’s life

“Gae” means dog in Korean but it can have two interpretations. The first one is the literal sense. JjongJjong is a “gae.” It was abandoned when it was a puppy, but when Ung met it, it was already a dog. It only looked like puppy because it was still treated like a baby.

Ung: Did you have a baby? (uncovering the stroller and sees the dog) I’ve never seen him walk.
Owner: He runs around at home though.
Ung: My dream is to live like Jjongjjong.
Owner: To tell you the truth, Jjongjjong was abandoned as a puppy. So he’s afraid of the outdoors.
Ung: What?
Owner: Maybe he was abandoned outside. He always acts like this outside. To be abandoned while on a walk. He must have been scared.

That’s when Ung understood why he felt an affinity for the dog. He could identify with the dog because:

a. he, too, was abandoned. They were both abandoned by their original owner.
b. he, too, was clingy. They were both scared of being abandoned again so they clung to their new owners.
c. he, too, desired a pampered life. Being pampered meant they were loved, and they could rest assured that they were secure in that love forever.

However, his life took a different turn from Jjongjjong’s life. The dog’s owner stayed constant and true to it, but Yeonsu abandoned him.

Thus, when they met again after five years, the dog had already forgotten and conquered its fear of abandonment while Ung suffered a setback and was stuck in fear again.

He called the Jjongjjong a traitor because he thought they would be in “comrades” or companions in their insecurity and fear, but the dog had already moved on without it. He was abandoned again.

In this sense, his life was worse than that of the dog. Years ago, he said that his dream was to live like Jjongjjong, but that dog had acquired a better life.

The second meaning of “gae” is its cultural connotation. In South Korea, dogs weren’t always the special pets that they are right now. They didn’t use to be high on the list of favored animals. Rather, the cows were viewed as the superior animal because they were a great asset in an agricultural society. The dogs, in comparison, were the inferior animals because they brought in little value to the farm.

Source: https://korelimited.com

This negative connotation of dogs as inferior and wild animals continues in the Korean language whenever the word “gae” is added as a prefix in profanities, like “gaesekki” or “gaejilal.” I guess, the word “gae” is used like an intensifier in the same way that some people drop those four-letter swear words as prefix for -brain, -face, -hole, -house, etc.

Therefore, when Ung said that he wanted a “dog’s life,” there was a word play there again because a dog’s life had a double meaning.

In the positive sense, he wanted a pampered life like Jjongjjong’s existence. But in the negative sense, he thought he ended up with a – pardon my French – a shitty, fucked-up life.

5. Missing words, unspoken memories

In the French movie, the two leads, Blanche and Lucas, had childhood traumas. They were two of a kind. She grew up in an abusive father. He saw his parents die in a lake in an apparent murder-suicide. He had flashbacks of his father drowning his mother.

However, he developed a terminal illness that was quickly erasing his memories and vocabulary. To me, his illness explains the abundance of word play in this film. Since he could no longer remember the right words, he was replacing them with words with similar sounds, alternative meanings or unique sense. The word play in the film was a result of his diminished mental capacity and the audience then had to derive the real meaning of his spoken words from his word association.

It’s similar to Yeonsu’s “daechu chaga” joke that nobody, not even the vendor, got. Lol.

Now, I think in this episode the screenwriter attempted to duplicate this dual loss of memory and vocabulary. I can see it in the way both Ung and his parents struggled to put into words how they actually felt about “November 19.” They never dwelled on that day; they never spoke about it; they never referred to that day. As a result, the words or language needed to communicate the traumatic feelings of the day became loss to them. The day had become a taboo.

Take for example, Ung’s parents. They didn’t tell Ung that they were leaving to attend to their dead son’s memorial. Most likely, they went to visit their son’s grave somewhere in the rural areas. But they couldn’t tell Ung where they were going because that would entail disclosing the truth about their son’s death, and Ung’s subsequent adoption. Those two unrelated events — their son’s death and Ung’s adoption — had become entwined together, so they couldn’t reveal one event without exposing the other.

Dad: It’s fall already.
Mom: You’re righting.
Dad: (pausing to gaze outside the window)
Mom: (also just staring outside)
Dad: It’s this week, right?
Mom: (nodding) I’ll tell Ung that we’re going to visit the countryside.
Dad: (holding her hand and patting it)

They couldn’t tell him how he’d come to join their family because they believed him to be suffering from dissociative amnesia. He blocked all memories of that day when he was left behind. As loving adoptive parents, they protected him from his memories of abandonment and kept their own grief from the loss of their son to themselves.

Like Jjongjjong’s owner, then, they pampered Ung. But showering Ung with all that love came with a price. Since they had to hide their own sadness, they also lost the chance to give a name to their sadness, the death of their child. Their memory of their son was repressed.

As for Ung, the same thing happened. In the beginning of the episode, when he was talking about Jjongjjong in his interview, he couldn’t name the reason he brought the subject up.

One moment he was rambling about the dog’s privileged life and saying, “So the reason why I’m suddenly bringing this up is…” then the next moment, he was lost in his memories. He began to remember the scholarship offer, his plans to bring Yeonsu with him, their sudden breakup, and then his childhood memory of crying alone in the street.

He was in a trance, and JiUng had to snap him out of it.

Ung: I’m sorry. What was I talking about?

Lol. I wouldn’t be surprised if this scene had a parallel scene in the French movie. Blanche performed on stage as a psychic. She’d go on a trance then reveal the secrets of the audience participants.

Ung had to be reminded that he was talking about Jjongjjong. Then he proceeded to tell JiUng how the dog had been in his mind a lot lately. He reflected on how it coped with its pain and how he was copying its actions. Although this monologue sounded like a heartfelt introspection, to me, he was actually deflecting from the truth. He avoided talking about the real reason Jjongjjong was on his mind: his childhood trauma.

Like his parents, Ung lost the ability to give his pain a name.

The following day when he was interviewed on a show, he again lost himself in a trance. The Interviewer, like JiUng, had to call his name a couple of times to rouse him.

Ung: Yes?
Interviewer: Are you alright? Was that a difficult question to answer?
Ung: No, it’s nothing. I’m sorry, but could you ask that again?

Interviewer: You said you don’t draw people in your works. It feels like you’ve purposely left people out of them. Like you’ve intentionally left those spaces empty. We can feel loneliness and emptiness in your drawings. I think that comes from the exclusion of people. Is that intentional or is this something that you did subconsciously?

We can tell that Ung’s thoughts wandered again to that time he was left crying in the middle of the street at night. The Interviewer’s questions triggered him to go on a trance.

Ung: It depends on the viewer and the interpretation. I haven’t thought of it that deeply.
Interviewer: But sometimes, the artist’s attitude helps us understand their pieces.
Ung: Well… I don’t have the stories you’re looking for.

Meaning, if the Interviewer wanted him to reveal a personal tragedy as fodder for the media, then he wasn’t going to oblige her. He was asserting his right to privacy. In effect, he was shutting her out. (See? This is what I meant when I said that Ung wasn’t a pushover.) So his manager stepped in to urge the Interviewer to talk about his upcoming exhibitions. The manager didn’t want the Interviewer doing armchair psychoanalysis.

Interviewer: It always feels like I can’t do an in-depth interview with you. (walking out)

From these two episodes then, it’s clear that Ung was showing signs of anxiety and dread for November 19. Although neither he nor his parents spoke about the day, it weighed on their minds. That’s why he woke up early. His manager thought he was still at home, but he’d already gone out to visit his parents’ store. He was surprised — and hurt — to see the sign at his parents’ restaurant, “Closed Today.”

Goodness! This actor’s face is so expressive, right?

As for Yeonsu, she had circled Friday, November 19 on her calendar because it was the last shoot for the documentary. But as she prepping for the filming, something made her stop and take a second look at the calendar. She wondered, “Is it today?”

Her intuition was confirmed when Ung didn’t appear for their appointment. She offered to look for him, but she knew, from experience, that Ung would be almost impossible to find that day. She remained calm when Ung’s manager reported that he couldn’t find Ung anywhere.

Manager: I couldn’t reach his parents either, so I asked the hardware store owner. They went to the countryside. He’s not at the bookstore or the library. I can’t find him anywhere. He’s determined to stay hidden.
Yeonsu: He won’t be where he goes often. He’s probably at an unexpected place.

This tells us that Ung had done this disappearing act to her at least once before.

Interestingly, his best friend JiUng didn’t notice anything odd. He thought Ung’s disappearance had something to do with him because he wanted to confess to Ung about his feelings for Yeonsu the night before.

In a nutshell, November 19 was a significant day. Although Ung and his parents might have forgotten the words to describe that day, e.g., death anniversary, missing parent day, adoption day, etc., they would always remember the feelings they had on that day.

6. “Our Nights”

Please come back for this because I’m still organizing my thoughts.

7. The Epilogue

I thought the epilogue did a great job of circling back to the beginning. Among other things, it showed why Ung had Jjongjjong on his mind.

Ung: Yeonsu-ah.
Yeonsu: Mmm?
Ung: Do you know how to see the top of that building?
Yeonsu: You can go up to a different building.
Ung: Teng! You got it wrong. (lying on the ground)

This is circumlocution. He was about to reveal something very serious to her but he was going about it in a roundabout and playful way.

Yeonsu: Ya! Are you that drunk?
Ung: (giggling) I heard this is how you do it.
Yeonsu: What simpleton said that?
Ung: My dad.
Yeonsu: I knew it. He’s so wise.

This is an oxymoron. She was saying that his father was a “wise fool.” She joined him on the ground. Ung giggled. They could see the night sky framed by the skyscrapers.

Yeonsu: I can’t see it though.
Ung: Right? That’s what I told him.
Yeonsu: When was that?
Ung: (inhaling) When I was about five? Six?
Yeonsu: He was just teasing you then.
Ung: (turning serious) Not my current dad.
Yeonsu: (turning to look at him) Huh?
Ung: My real dad. (swallowing) Of course he was teasing me. He told a little kid to lie down and count to the top floor. I didn’t even know how to count then. I kept repeating, “one two, one two,” then I eventually got back up.
Yeonsu: (staring at him)
Ung: When I did, he was gone.
Yeonsu: (sitting up) Ung-ah.
Ung: Isn’t that funny?

This is irony. He said it was funny, but he actually meant the opposite. It wasn’t funny at all. It was traumatic.

Ung: (exhaling) How could he abandon me like that? (covers his eyes and cries)

This is a rhetorical question. He wasn’t asking for an answer. But he was finally expressing his repressed memories and emotions.

Flashback to a child crying in the streets. He was peering at every stranger who passed by him, checking to see if it was his father.

Yeonsu removed his hand covering his eyes, and kissed him.

My comments:

a. We finally understand why Ung was thinking of Jjongjjong lately. He was remembering his trauma and knew that he was guilty of taking the easy way out, ala Jjongjjong, to cope with the pain.

b. It made sense to me why in Episode 1 Ung said he enjoyed lying in the shade in the sun.

Ung: I love lying in the shade, the gentle breeze, the sunlight shining through the trees.

His daytime view was nothing like the night father left him. No moonlight, and the sky was as far away as the tops of the buildings.

c. All day long he was feeling unworthy.

First, he remembered being abandoned. If his father could abandon him just like that, then he mustn’t have been a child worth keeping and loving.

Second, his parents had left him to go to parts unknown. Not only didn’t they inform in advance that they were taking the day off, they also didn’t tell him where they were going. Although they acted like this out of consideration for his feelings, they didn’t realize that they made him feel abandoned again. When he discovered that they had disappeared without warning, it was like his father disappearing on him again.

Third, Jjongjjong was doing better than him.

Fourth, he didn’t “deserve” Yeonsu. She was too good for him, and sooner or later, she’d abandon him again.

d. Like Blanche and Lucas in the French film felt they were “damaged goods” because of their childhood, both Yeonsu and Ung (and JiUng, too, but I’m not talking about him) felt that they were damaged by their formative years. Yeonsu grew up with an inferiority complex because of her grandmother’s training, and Ung was mentally and emotionally scarred because of his father’s disappearance.

However, like in the couple in the movie decided to love each other, Yeonsu decided to love again despite her pride, and Ung decided to love again despite his memories of trauma.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

I’ll finish #6 when I can. But I’m starting on Ep 12 tomorrow. (No spoilers, please.) I don’t know why I’m still writing about this because the drama already ended and I want to move on to other dramas, like “Boss and Me,” and Nam Joo Hyuk’s new drama. We’ll see….