Left Flank

Secret Sunshine (which is the English translation of the South Korean town, Miryang) is more than a very thick read. It's a credit to its inspirations. The blend of Kafka, in Before the Law, and Korean culture takes time to develop. This might be one of the few exceptions in long form where narrative time is worthily traded for the essay that worms into one's brain in spite of its brevity. Kafka had a knack for provocative metaphors, but Lee Chang-dong might just have managed to create a film that haunts in its own way.

From the beginning, there was a refreshing earnestness about Lee's characters. Unlike most big budget films on either side of the Pacific, Lee's Koreans acted like the ones I know, not the illusions those Koreans wished to believe about themselves. That is, except for the lead character, Lee Shin-ae. Watching her was like being subjected to a fictive character walking around with a huge sign marked «everyman». Worse, all the other characters want to believe her lies. Her ruse is shattered very early, when she talks about moving to her husband's hometown, only what woman would feel such devotion to a man so stupid he died in a car accident with his mistress? Quickly again, Song Kang-ho (one of my favorite South Korean actors)'s character puts a plague, listing her fictive achievements, on the wall with the intent of luring customers to a piano school, she cannot disagree.

At one point it seems the film is becoming an advertisement for the church, and a deaconess' s insight that there are real things unseen in the world does help Shin-ae. Her son's murderer gives her another chance to submit, but she feels only anger that God would forgive the sinner and grant him peace before she could play her role as saintly mother dispensing forgiveness. Shin-ae sacrifices her son, who is kidnapped and murdered, her reputation in the church and town, and finally her sanity. But, still she refuses to submit. As her mother shrieks at her grandson's funeral, Shin-ae brings only death.

However, Shin-ae reveals the hypocrisy of the Christians in her own community as she painfully gives up her own lies. There's one scene where she furtively replaces the musical backdrop for an outdoor revival with a Korean song, «Lies». In another, a troubled girl, the daughter of the murderer, seeks help from the deaconess, but she is not at her business. The church community is no different from the other townspeople who believe Shin-ae's lies about her musical skills and investments. The deaconess and her husband, whom Shin-ae repays by seducing him, work with Shin-ae very compassionately, but never realize how much the other girl needs help. As bad as she appears, her family and fairweather friends behave even worse.

When one sees a Korean film like this, one can only hope Koreans stop watching the other kinds of lies they watch.