Jung Jin-woo’s classic film, following the idyllic but threatened lives of a charcoal maker and his wife, dissects themes of traditional versus modern Korea, while its veiled eroticism predates the more overt “Three S” cinematic period. Its use of cuckoo symbolism to reveal the protagonist’s tragic family legacy is inspired. [Read More]
People: Jeong Yoon-hee (정윤희)
Im Kwon-Taek’s Village in the Mist — affairs on an Anonymous Island
Han Su-ok, a young schoolteacher, arrives in an isolated mountain village to take up her first job in an elementary school. As she gets off the bus, the village initially seems deserted, like a ghost town, hemmed in by the high forbidding walls of the surrounding mountains like a prison. You wonder what sort of … [Read More]
Exhibition Visit: Sung Hwan Kim – Temper Clay in Tate Modern Tanks
So far I’ve probably spent seven hours over the course of five visits trying to figure out the massive installation in the Tate Modern by 37 year old Sung Hwan Kim (김성환). I haven’t succeeded yet, and indeed I’m not at all sure it’s possible fully to resolve the into a coherent whole the many … [Read More]