The first South Korean film I didn't like

Hard as this is to believe: a South Korean indie-arty film shot in black-and-white - and I didn't like it? Yes, in this case, though the film had all the earmarks of the kind of work I usually go for in a big way, I couldn't stand watching "The Day He Arrives" and abandoned it after 40 minutes rather than waste even more of my time. If I were to describe the film, which I will, I will no doubt make it sound better than it actually is, which is exactly the problem - it's a very "teachable" film, that one could discuss and analyze and try to figure out - but that seems to be its whole purpose, to be enigmatic and elusive, and it essentially comes off as a film professor's experiment, not as a work of art or a work of entertainment. Briefly, this short (80-minute) movie opens with a voice-over narrator telling us he's arrived for a few days in a city (Seoul) where he hopes to meet up with an old friend. He tries to reach the friend by cell, no answer. Suddenly, a young woman - one of his film students apparently - sees him, is surprised to run into him in Seoul, and they have a very awkward conversation in which she is clearly in awe of him; she's going for coffee with friends but, instead of joining her, he decides just to walk around the cit with his little backpack. This behavior seems odd, but we, or at least I, wrote it off as perhaps a cultural difference between the U.S. and South Korea - but eventually we learn otherwise, as scene after scene involves odd behavior, and we figure it's either the oddity of this filmmaker or the intentional desire to depict abnormal behavior that is nonrepresentational. Among scenes: three film students recognize the director/narraator, he joins them for drinks, he takes them by cab to some other city neighborhood, then runs away from them screaming, telling them to stop "copying" him; he goes to an old girlfriend's apartment, bursts into fake sobbing, the have groping sex, and in the morning he leaves and they say they love each other but will never communicate again. And it goes on. Okay, there may be some deeper meaning to these mashups, for example, this may be a South Korean version of 8 1/2, the torment of a frustrated filmmaker or artist. Or, the "He" may be a Christ figure, returned to earth (to Seoul) and misunderstood by all: some are in love with him but will not communicate with him; some recognize him and "copy" him but in foolish ways, and so forth. As noted, there could be a lot of "meaning" in this film but it's so heavy-handed an awkward in its narration that it keeps us unengaged rather than open to its message, whatever that may be.