The warm reception No Other Choice has received at early screenings isn’t evident in Park’s photos from the circuit, which often feel unsettling, even when depicting something as banal as a tree. Though Park sees his filmmaking and photography as motivated by two totally separate impulses, both practices demonstrate the artist’s unique eye for drawing an inner reality out of his subjects, whether it’s heavy machinery at a paper mill in No Other Choice or a creepy statue of a bunny rabbit standing by a wall in one of his more strangely disturbing photos.

I spoke with Park about his photography, how it connects (or doesn’t) with his movies, taking advice from iconic photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark, and why he’s been mulling a change in his filmmaking style.

Courtesy of Park Chan-wook

GQ: Your photographs are quite different from your films. What sort of things draw your eye to snap a photo?

Park Chan-wook: Regarding this subject that I want to photograph, I’m not attracted to landscapes or a grand sight that would capture anybody. Rather, I’m more attracted to typical objects or typical views that we normally just pass by. And specifically, I’m not attracted to the typicality of the object itself. In a specific moment when that subject is under a good light and in a specific angle, it shines out this momentary illumination that captivates me. And that’s what makes me want to press the shutter.

Some of your most striking photos are the blurrier ones, many of which are actually photographs of other artworks. I’m interested in that choice, and what’s speaking to you there.

I enjoy looking at artworks in museums. And these art pieces or sculptures, they almost seem like they’re sleeping, or they’re even dead inside these museums. It’s like they’ve lost the liveliness from the moment they were created. So I use an extremely slow shutter speed, and I also shake the camera on purpose and take as many shots as possible and pick the one that I like. These pictures contrast the quiet gloom of the art museum, and they look more lively and dynamic. So I don’t record the subjects in my photographs, which museum they were in or which artist it was by, because that’s not important in my photographs. And other than these shaky photos, I’ve also taken photographs of many other moments in museums, so I want to collect them one day and have a museum series exhibition or publish it in a collection.