The KCC’s theme for its two film screenings in May is the family. The first of the films, The Way Home (집으로…) was the surprise low-budget hit of 2002.
This is director Lee Jeong-hyang’s second film, her first being the gentle rom-com Art Museum by the Zoo, whose draw was the star actress Shim Eun-ha. For The Way Home, Lee used completely untried actors - with the exception of Yoo Seung-ho, who plays the spoilt brat.
The synopsis from koreanfilm.org:
The Way Home opens with a single mother who, faced with financial troubles, decides to leave her seven-year son with his mute grandmother in the countryside. Having run away from home at a young age, the mother introduces the two to each other for the first time and then leaves for the city. The boy is furious at this upheaval in his life, taking out his frustrations by misbehaving and making wild demands of his grandmother.
This is a gentle, touching film. If you think Korean film is Oldboy and Asia Extreme, this one will provide a different slant. And, for something completely different, read this article which compares The Way Home with big budget action blockbuster Swiri.
The film screens on 8 May at 7pm, and as usual pre-booking is required by ringing 020 7004 2600 or emailing info at kccuk dot org dot uk.
Links
That’s the intriguing question posed by Andrew Jackson’s talk at the Sheffield BAKS conference last week. It was a question prompted by a statement by Ahn Sang-gun, a senior figure in KOTRA, the Korean Trade Investment Promotion Agency, and reported in the Donga Ilbo on 5 April 2003: that The Way Home and Swiri are
the two films that best represent the modern face of the South Korean nation.
Hmm. A Hollywood style action flick and a feel-good movie about a spoilt brat who can’t get his choco-pies when staying with his impoverished granny out in the sticks. How could either of these films be said to represent South Korean modernity? Andrew Jackson accepted the challenge. It was an interesting compare and contrast exercise which was maybe a little forced at times, as with any such exercise, but which in the end came up with some good answers to the question.
Jackson set the scene pointing out that each film was in its own way a landmark. Swiri was Korea’s first major film to use Hollywood-style techniques [] and was the first record-breaker of the Korean new wave [], while The Way Home was the first Korean film to be bought by a major US distributor. He also noted that Swiri was made immediately after the IMF crisis and some embarrassing building collapses which questioned Korean construction standards: South Korea was in need of a morale-booster and Swiri gave it. Jackson noted how despite the fact that armed agents were rampaging all over Seoul blowing up office buildings and having major shoot-outs, there was not an American in sight. This is a struggle that the South Koreans can win on their own []. The Way Home premiered in 2002 when the South Korean economy had recovered somewhat from the IMF crisis. Korea could therefore afford to start looking back to some of its heritage and consider its relevance in a modern context.
|
Way Home |
Swiri |
| Opening: the clash of systems |
Contrasts shots of a train (=modernity) with shots of a traditional home in the countryside. The modern world is about to intrude into the countryside (- but as we will see, modernity will be transformed by the experience) |
Contrasts shots of modern Seoul with the brutal, primitive regime of a DPRK training camp. The brutality of the agents is about to intrude on the modernity of the South — by blowing up the Olympic / World Cup stadium — a symbol of the South’s emergence into the international community. |
| Gender |
The women are the heroes, the men are “cripples” (the father is jobless and has left the family; the boy is helpless without his Nintendo) [] |
The men are the modern action heroes, the female lead is a monster, a Hydra. |
| Values |
While modernity has its attractions, the past has values such as jeong from which we can all learn. |
The South (=modernity) are rational, independent, individual, democratic. The North are group-minded, inflexible, irrational and savage []. |
| Resolution |
South Korean modernity needs to be informed by jeong and links with the past. |
South Korean modernity, individuality and democracy will win through in the end. |
Jackson concluded by synthesizing the views of modernity to be found in the two films: that South Korea could partake in western-style modernity, but can do so without foreign interference and while retaining its own distinct culture.
A fun and thought-provoking session.
