For now, the film balances with virtuosity between opulence and home drama and it reminds me in two very different masterpieces, Alfred Hitchcock´s Vertigo and Hou Hsiao Hsien´s Beiqing Chengshi (A City Of Sadness). Like in Hou´s film, it deals with a historical trauma, in this case the Jeju uprising on April 3, 1948. And like in Hitchcock´s film the unmanaged past, an unmanaged personal trauma is like an own almost uncontrollable gravitation field.
The teenage boy Young-ook lives with his widowed mother. His name is actually a girl´s name. He is ashamed by his name and ashamed because his mother is much older than the parents of his school mates. Not only some school mates, as well some teachers make fun of his name. This story take place in the late 90s, where the democratization process in South Korea just began. After an accident his mother has mysterious breakdowns and begins initially reluctantly a psycho therapy. Without being able to put a finger on it, the psychiatrist guesses a very deep and repressed trauma. The violence in his school and the cynicism of some teacher still seem to reflect a society which has not left behind its autocratic past. But for now, the film remains a kind of “Coming of Age”. The boy is totally absorbed in his time with his friends and the problems kids have in this very age. At the beginning imperceptibly but with gradually increasing intensity, the story of the mother replaces the “Coming of Age”-element. Strange, mysterious flashbacks filmed with a toppled camera perspective give hints that the universe like it is presented in this film is by far not as it seems. From time to time and in a precise synchronicity to the flashbacks, the mother begins to talk. I do not want to give too much away, but as the film proceeds, it turns away from my comparisons with Hitchcock or Hou and moves more in the direction of the devastating consequence in the tragedies by Ritwik Ghatak. The different three time levels, the late 90s, the late 40s and finally short moments of the presence today have a disturbing synchronicity. The intensity increases until to its heartbreaking finale, the uprising on April 3, 1948, where estimated between 30000 and 60000 civilians were killed. The collision of historical and the mother´s personal trauma is hard to bear.
This film, shot in in brilliant Cinemascope images becomes a real tour de force. When the pretended family constellations break down, each of the characters have to redefine her/his own existence. At the beginning, Chung Ji-young seems to create an order of carefully composed images and this order will fall in the second half of this film. At the beginning this seemingly clear defined universe gets more and more cracks and leads finally to its breakdown. What has literally burnt into my memory is this breathtaking performance of Yeom Hye-ran as the mother/grandmother (a well known Korean actress present in so much TV-dramas and films and most recently in Park Chan-wook´s No Other Choice). Sometimes she plays and fidgets her heart out, another time she is hiding her inner turmoil behind stubbornness and stoicism. Die collision of historical and personal trauma takes especially place in the physical presence of this outstanding actress. And her character has as well a key dramaturgical function in the films metamorphosis from every day drama to the hell of an unresolved historical trauma.
The director Chung Ji-young, is a representative of the elder generation of Korean cinema, but nevertheless as well a good example why the contemporary Korean cinema is probably the most interesting in Asia today. To find for this subject a thoughtful cinematic language which is honest but not entirely manipulative, is quite a big challenge and achievement where many a filmmaker has failed. The film is incredibly multifaceted and evokes such a wide range of emotions that it can makes one dizzy. And again there is Yeom Hye-ran´character who tries to get rid of a trauma which tortured her character for decades. The movements of her body seem to be trying to shake off this trauma as if from an evil spirit. The disturbance remains. No catharsis can heal this wounds of history which has inflicted the bodies and souls of the victims whose names are always the first ones which are forgotten in history books.
Rüdiger Tomczak.
The Korean original title of this film according t the Internet Movie Database is without guarantee. Unfortunately I could not find it in the Berlinale-program.
Further screenings:
14.Feb, 12.00 Cubix 8
21.Feb, 21.30 Bluemax Theater
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