The Call (2020): It comes from inside the house
2020 • Lee Chung-hyun • 2.39:1 • Jump to Gallery ↓
Directed by Lee Chung-hyun, The Call is a South Korean remake of the British-Puerto Rican thriller The Caller. The story follows a young woman who returns to her childhood home and discovers that the house’s telephone enables her to communicate with a woman who lived there twenty years earlier. What initially appears to be an innocent connection gradually turns sinister as actions taken in the past begin to alter the present.
The film’s central visual concept is that the same house exists in two different decades simultaneously. Scenes frequently cut between the contemporary version of the house and how it appeared twenty years earlier. Subtle changes to the production design communicate the temporal shift, altering details such as furniture, lighting fixtures, wallpaper, and interior décor.
The two timelines are also distinguished through cinematography and colour grading. The present timeline is generally photographed with cooler tones and subdued lighting, while the earlier timeline favours warmer, more saturated colours. As the film relies primarily on contained locations and precise editing, suspense is developed through gradual narrative escalation, and the repeated framing of the same spaces across different time periods reinforces the structural connection between the past and the present.
Technical Specs:
- The Story: A woman discovers that the phone in her childhood home connects her to another woman living in the past, setting off a deadly chain of events that twists fate and revenge across time. Read my review of The Call.
- Actors: Park Shin-hye, Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Sung-ryung, Lee El.
- Director: Lee Chung-hyun
- Year: 2020
- Cinematographer: Jo Young-jik
- Origin: Korean Cinema
- Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
- Genre: Sci-Fi / Crime & Mystery
