South Korean independent film “Unknown Narrative” could be named “Unfathomable Narrative” instead. It is supposed to be your average dream movie reminiscent of many other similar films such as David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” (2001), but any of its variously confusing moments do not gel together enough to hold my attention, and I found myself checking the time more than once during my viewing despite its rather short running time (75 minutes).

In the beginning, the movie seems to be mainly about Gi-un (Kim Dae-gun), a young man who works as a stunt double for the lead actor of some zombie apocalypse movie. When he begins another day, Gi-un feels rather disturbed for some unknown reason, and that odd impression on him grows further when he and others have an inexplicable happening while shooting one particular scene of their zombie flick.

After that weird moment, Gi-un frequently experiences one weird thing after another in his dream, and the movie accordingly throws lots of odd moments in seemingly random order. For example, we are introduced to a colorful delivery truck driver who keeps talking to himself as driving to somewhere, and then we see a schoolteacher doing her classroom lesson in front of a bunch of plant pots for no apparent reason. To be frank with you, I really have no idea on what these strange moments really mean for Gi-un, and I must warn you that they are just the prelude to many baffling moments to follow.

In the meantime, we are also introduced to Gi-eun (Jeong Ha-dam), a young woman who has suffered a lot due to her spinal injury caused by some serious accident. She recently decides to quit her painkiller because it keeps muddling her state of mind, but her doctor warns that the following withdrawal symptoms can also be quite severe, and things surely start to become very confusing for her mind. For example, there is a colorful dream moment where she does a free shopping here and there inside a big clothing shop, and then it turns out that her unconscious state of mind is connected with Gi-un’s for some unknown reason. This certainly makes the situation all the more confusing for us, and we come to wonder more about whether something actually happened between them.

However, the movie does not give us anything tangible enough for us to sense and understand whatever is happening on the screen, and there are also a number of glaring technical tactics which became more and more tiresome for me during my viewing. Whenever a character mentions something supposedly important, the movie suddenly makes a blatant jump cut just for showing that for a few seconds, and you will feel more embarrassed as the movie does the same thing again and again to the end. As an amateur film reviewer, I am not an expert at all, and I can tell you at least that even a film school novice will be too ashamed to do such a heavy-handed thing like that.

And that is just one of many other things which may frustrate or annoy you a lot. The sound effects of the movie are deliberately jarring, but this serves no purpose at all in my humble opinion, and neither does the decidedly overbearing score, which grated on my eardrums more than once. In addition, the line delivery of the performers in the film often feels so stiff that you will become more aware of the artificial qualities of the movie.

I guess the movie wants to catch its audiences off guard all the time, and I respect that to some degree, but it unfortunately forgets to ground its random dream narrative on any kind of emotional thread we can hang on. Sure, we may never explain everything in “Mulholland Drive”, but there is always a strong emotional center to interest and fascinate us to the end. In case of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” (2008), it is also equally confusing from the beginning to the end, but it somehow touched me in a similar way, and that is the main reason why I have been eager to revisit this sublime piece of work someday.

At least, I cannot say anything bad about the two main performers of the film, who try their best for filling their respective parts with some life and personality. While Kim Dae-gun, who previously played a crucial supporting character in “Drown” (2022), did a fairly good job of embodying his character’s growing confusion and desperation along the story, Jeong Ha-dam, who has been another interesting South Korean actress to watch since her breakout turn in “Still Flower” (2015), has some fun with several showy moments given to her, and it is a shame that their efforts are often limited by the weak storytelling and thin characterization of their movie. In case of several performers who simply come and go, Park Myung-shin manages to acquit himself well even though he is required to carry his single scene alone, and Lee Hyun-jin and Lee Ju-won also leave some impression during their brief appearance.

“Unknown Narrative” is the first feature film of director/writer Yang Gun-young, who previously made short film “Please Don’t Ask Me Why” (2019). Despite my immense frustration with her movie, I must point out that there are occasional signs of considerable talent in the film, and I guess she really wants to demonstrate what she is capable of as much as possible here in this film, but she sadly fails to make something as singular as Park Sye-young’s remarkable debut feature film “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” (2022). At least, she will probably move onto something more interesting sooner or later, and I really think she can do that.