[무비스트=박꽃 기자]


DIRECTOR : OH Jung-seok
CAST : KIM Yura, Kimg Lok-kyong

Seung-hee (KIM Yura) who lives in Seoul, returns to her hometown on Geoje Island to sort through her mother's belongings. A quiet island, Geoje is located off the southern coast, north of Jeju Island and west of Busan. It is regarded as a holiday destination for city folks, but for Seung-hee, it is nothing but the dull and familiar place where she spent her childhood. After exchanging pleasantries with a friend she hadn't met in a long time, she comes across some guys who invite her for a drink. These tourists who went to the sea for a vacation already have red faces. Aware that they will of course return to their normal life after having some short lived fun here, she feels quite distant. Awkward introductions, humdrum tales of heroic exploits at the army, and silly jokes are exchanged, and yet Seung-hee's mind is somewhere else. She has already finished sorting and packing her mother's clothes and other belongings. However, having taken a leave of absence from work, she does not feel like going back to Seoul right away. Struggling with her life and a relationship in the busy city, she briefly considers staying in her hometown, Without much savings nor any work she would like to do, she doesn't have a clear idea of what she could do in Geoje Island, but that doesn't mean she feels up to intensely preparing herself for something new. She spends her days oversleeping, enjoying the breeze from an electric fan, strolling the countryside roads around the village and going out at sunset to spend time with her grandmother who works in the field. Her sluggish days go by. There is literally nothing happening.


A comfort delicately handed over

As if embodying Seung-hee's sentiment, the camera demonstrates a lot of patience in the way it contemplates her routine through long-takes. The chirping of the insects hiding in the grass, the gentle murmur of the waves crashing the shore, the whoosh of the cars passing by on a nearby road, and the muffled clamor of television coming from a store that has seen several generations of owners all complement the flow of images, which are devoid of any complex mise-en-scene or excessive display of emotion from the characters. "Young people who are anxious, for whom the things they wanted to try didn't work as intended, and who cannot rely on their families even though they want to, sometimes they prefer to keep that sadness deep inside instead of showing their emotions", says director OH Jung-seok, who was in his twenties when he made the film. This is why, when the woman heads to the coast near the lighthouse with a fishing rod to soothe her mind and meets a stranger (KIM Lok-kyoung) who works for a shipyard, the viewers may naturally expect some kind of romance or an inkling of humanism, but that wish hardly comes true. Seung-hee and the shipyard guy meet for meals and go fishing together, but they remain excessively composed. Far from having the rebellious spirit to reject the world altogether, they don't even indulge in self-pity over their situation. More extravagant are the strange men arguing back and forth or the small mistakes they make under the influence of a alcohol. Their passive and spiritless faces Symbolize today's young people. The world does not change once you have expressed yourself, and unless you overcome the human condition whereby nothing is certain, emotional diversion is nothing but a burden. Seung-hee only recognizes rat this young shipyard worker, who goes to work in the same uniform every day and whose only hobby is fishing, 18 someone who has been put in a similar situation to hers. The two share some sense of kinship and meager comfort as two souls belonging to the same "people", in that they eat sundae (Korean blood sausage) by dipping it in seasoned soybean paste (in the Geoje Island way) rather than in salt (?la Seoul). This is how these scenes of "patiently and silently scrutinized consolation", as distributor Cinesopa CEO SUNG Song-yi put it, translate in the film.


Now is the time to wait

The climax in this quiet story is the sequence when they climb to Pyewang Fortress (also known as Dundeokgi Castle), a historical site on Geoje Island. Built during the Late Silla period, one of the ancient Korean kingdoms, this fortress is known as the place where King Uijong (1146- 1170) was later incarcerated following a military coup during the Goreyo Dynasty era. This place, where the one person who should have displayed the greatest authority and prowess had to spend time confined with his hands Lied, reflects the current situation the two young people are in. When they reach the terrace by the sea where the fortress stands, they are overwhelmed by the placid scenery made up of the pale purple sky and the bottomless sea. Where the two meet, the contours of big and small islands emerge faintly. The landscape looks elusively beautiful, but it is actually distant and out of reach. This scene seems to describe the time these youths are spending in exile as well as the life they have yet ahead of them. One day, they will become more forthcoming in their lives than they are now. They will be able to openly express their emotions and to regularly vent their complaints about the world. There will come a day when they will enjoy the luxury of sharing their concerns and affection, as human beings, with a significant other, who may or may not be the person they just met now. However, the time has not come. The moment when Seung-hee, who had yet to recover from the loss of her mother, faces the unexpected death of her grandmother, for some reason the shipyard guy is nowhere to be seen. Without anyone to share her grief with, she climbs to the fortress again. She watches alone the scenery at dusk. The distant landscape is getting darker. Where will she go now? What will she do for a living? A youth's waiting time is running out.

by Flora Got PARK (MOVIST Reporter, Film Journalist)


이 기사는 영화진흥위원회가 발간하는 영문 잡지 '코리안 시네마 투데이' 부산국제영화제호(Vol.37)에 실렸습니다.



2020년 11월 6일 금요일 | 글_박꽃 기자(got.park@movist.com 무비스트)
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