New Review of Film and Television Studies, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2013.857487 RESEARCH ARTICLE The unbearable lightness of Hong Sang-soo’s HaHaHa: awkward humor, nervous laughter, and self-critique in contemporary Korean comedy David Scott Diffrient* Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA Drawing from existing literature in the field of comedy studies (including work related to three long-established theories of laughter: superiority theory, incongruity theory, and relief theory), this paper examines the humorous elements in Hong Sang-soo’s films. Focusing on the Korean director’s tellingly titled film HaHaHa (2010), the author puts forth the idea that both internal and external bursts of hilarity (coming from the characters and from the audience, respectively) form a line of bivalent critique that links textual and extratextual aspects of screen comedy. That linkage is gestured toward by the artificial ‘movement’ (or, rather, magnification) of the image specific to the zoom shot, which can be seen in nearly every one of this film’s simultaneously painful and pleasurable, uncomfortable and entertaining, sequences. In addition to expanding Paul Willemen’s theory of cinematic zooming, the author seizes upon some of the most persuasive writings about the comic mode in order to critically frame Hong Sang-soo’s unique brand of humorous self-reflexivity. Keywords: Hong Sang-soo; humor theories; Korean cinema; laughter; philosophy; screen comedy ‘This isn’t funny.’ ‘No, it’s funny. Very funny.’ (two characters in Hong Sang-soo’s Woman on the Beach [Haebyo ˘n’U ˘ i yo ˘in, 2006]) Many film critics and theorists have examined the structural elements within Hong Sang-soo’s (Hong Sang-su’s) distinctive brand of elliptical, episodic cinema, drawing attention to the Korean filmmaker’s sophisticated manipulation of space and time in narratives rooted in the quotidian (Choi 2010, 182 – 193; Deutelbaum 2005, 187–199; 2008, 203–216; Unger 2012, 141 – 156). Beginning with his directorial debut, The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (Twaeji ka umul e ppajin nal, 1996), Hong has consistently demonstrated a predilection for fragmented storytelling and shifting focalizations, facets of his oeuvre that have been discussed frequently (Diffrient 2008, 82–99). Less frequently elaborated on *Email: scott.diffrient@colostate.edu q 2013 Taylor & Francis Downloaded by [David Scott Diffrient] at 12:39 21 November 2013