korea

Secret Sunshine (Milyang) (Director: Lee Chang-dong): Jeon Do-yeon gives a breath­taking per­form­ance as Shin-ae, a recently wid­owed young mother who takes her son to live in her late husband’s hometown, hoping for a fresh start. Instead, a new tragedy plunges her fur­ther into grief. Although to some, this may sound like just the sort of “film fest­ival” film to avoid, it was never less than com­pel­ling, des­pite its 142 minute run time.

Possible Spoiler Alert: Despite the fact that every review I’ve read dis­cusses the plot points I’m about to reveal, I thought it would be fair to warn you.

It’s clear that Shin-ae is already an isol­ated figure even before she moves to a new town. Her husband’s death in a car acci­dent doesn’t seem to be the only reason she wants a fresh start. She leaves without telling her own family, to whom she seems estranged. Her only joy is in her young son, Jun. As she estab­lishes her­self as a piano teacher in her new sur­round­ings, we learn a bit more. She had mar­ried young, pre­sum­ably to get out of her family’s house­hold. Her hus­band had cheated on her. Her brother seems to want to stay in touch. And then there’s Jong-chan, the goofy local mech­anic who’s developed a major crush on her. Despite his sin­cere attrac­tion, she tries to keep him at arm’s length. He’s 39 and unmar­ried, which makes him a figure of fun to his friends. But touch­ingly, he con­tinues to watch over Shin-ae, and when her son is kid­napped and later found dead, he’s there to offer sup­port. But she doesn’t seem to notice.

The film is really a journey into the hell that is grief. Though the first loss seemed only to stagger her, the loss of her child threatens to sweep her away. In a des­perate attempt to hold off the full force of her grief, and the pain that is phys­ic­ally weighing her down, she joins an evan­gel­ical church. God and the believers are offering her com­fort, even healing, and she snatches at the chance. It seems to work for a little while, and she decides to visit her son’s killer in prison, to offer him her for­give­ness. But when she arrives, she finds out that he too has found faith, that God has already for­given his sins, and that jars her tenuous belief.

At this point, we begin to sur­mise that Shin-ae’s rela­tion­ship with her father may have been one of abuse, and her anger at God seems to become entwined with her feel­ings for her own father. In her sudden dis­il­lu­sion­ment with Christianity, she lashes out in ways both funny (her sab­otage of a prayer meeting’s sound system) and cruel (her seduc­tion of a church elder). Several times during these des­perate acts, she looks up to the heavens and asks, “Can you see me?”

All along, the com­fort and love she’s longing for are under her nose. Jong-chan (played with won­derful gen­tle­ness by The Host’s Song Kang-ho) waits patiently, picking up the pieces at every turn. He even joins the church for her, which leads to sev­eral comic moments. It might be tempting to think that the film is cri­ti­cizing Christianity, but in hind­sight, the devo­tion and self­less­ness shown by Jong-chan is prob­ably the closest thing to the ideal of Christian love in the entire film. Which is not to say he’s a saint. He’s lonely, too, but his determ­in­a­tion that they are right for each other is touching and in the end, we hope, convincing.

The film could very well have been entitled “A New Life,” for that’s what Shin-ae is seeking all along. At the end, it’s not all resolved. She’s gone through hell, and might have to go through more, but there is a little bit of hope. The name of the town, we’re told early in the film, is derived from the Chinese for “secret sun­shine.” By the closing frames, we’re hoping Shin-ae can see it.

Trailer
Official Site

(8/10)

Tagged as: #tiff07, christianity, korea, religion, TIFF

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