OF FAITH THE BELT

When it came to the film’s main theme, The Belt of Faith, which was to be used over a key scene whereby the low-income Kim family put their plan into action to infiltrate the wealthy Park household, Jaeil hit a wall, presenting six different versions to the director – each of which was rejected. The secret to the seventh, over seven-minute version? A hangover.

“It was quite difficult,” Jaeil discloses thoughtfully. “The film goes to another level at this point. It’s an eight-minute sequence which means I had to compose a song that was eight minutes long, and if the director didn’t like it, I had to make another eight minute song. That took a lot of time. By version six I thought, ‘This is the final one; I can’t compose a better version than this.’ [The director] listened and he didn’t like that version either, so I just drank tons of wine that night. The next morning I woke up with a hangover, but I sat in front of the piano and improvised something without any thoughts. I felt vulnerable and powerless, but I thought, ‘Well, I can let him listen to this too,’ – without any thoughts, without any dreams. I let him listen, and he liked it! That’s how it came about. You have to compose thoughtlessly sometimes; it’s necessary,” he shrugs.

More recently, Jaeil turned his attention to his own project in the form of Listen, an intimate piano-based album featuring warm cinematic strings that takes inspiration from nature, humanity and the need to listen to the planet and one another. For Jaeil, it’s long overdue.

“I’ve been composing for almost 25 years and I released my last solo album in 2004,” he points out. “After that, I failed to be a singer-songwriter and I became a music director who makes music for films, dance performances and pop singers. I was a little bit afraid because I hadn’t done my own project for such a long time, but I knew it was time to do my own thing. I started thinking about it right after Parasite won the Oscar. When the pandemic happened, I couldn’t go anywhere for more than two years. I felt vulnerable and powerless. I thought about how we didn’t listen to one another. We didn’t love each other and we didn’t listen to the voice of this beautiful planet. I hoped that everyone would stop and listen to one another more. I wanted to listen to all the voices of everything that surrounds us; I hope that people feel alive when they listen.”

Recorded at Rainbow Studio in Norway and performed by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, Listen deftly showcases Jaeil’s talent for crafting evocative and poignant compositions.

“This album sounds like my intimate feelings – more than language, more than words. That’s why I chose piano and orchestra as the main instruments for this album. I went deep inside of my heart to ask, ‘What do I have to do as an artist?’ Sometimes I feel art is powerless – it cannot change the world. But I truly believe art can soothe one’s soul; art can feed or can put a seed in one’s soul. A soul touched by art could change the world – I believe that,” he adds sincerely. “I hope this can be a tiny seed so that we can listen to each other, feel each other’s souls and do something good for this world.”

His success with improv on Parasite led him to use that tactic again as a starting point on Listen – albeit minus the hangover.

“All pieces are based on improvisation,” he nods. “I felt I needed a place to be locked away in, so I used this beautiful studio in Oslo. For me, the Scandinavian Peninsula is very innocent – I love cold weather as well, so I decided to work at Rainbow Studio. Thankfully the studio engineer let me use the studio for four weeks in a row. I got an idea about getting the chords down, not the melody. On The River, I had the idea of water flowing, so I started improvising and it just came out after 10 or 20 minutes, and then I just kept the fragments and the ideas…” he trails off, suddenly pensive. “My first language is musical instruments,” he smiles by way of explanation. “I’m very comfortable in front of the piano, more than when I speak.”

INSTA: @JUNGJAEIL.COMPOSER