Left Flank

My dismal experiences with the 13th PIFF continued tonight. This is just not a good year for the festival and me.

Tonight I anticipated my first true «choice» among all the films I have not been able to watch. Still Walking, by KORE-EDA Hirokazu managed to be both poignant and unsettling. What I most liked about this film was how it didn't interfere with the deteriorating dynamics of a family built on a failed marriage between its elders. Its most evocative character is the elderly mother, who at one point plays a record all assume to be a loving bond with her difficult husband, only to find out its her way of torturing her husband for an affair with a woman who liked to sing the song. The cinematography featured broad canvas shots of family members who nonetheless are about as unloving as strangers. Unfortunately, a succession of technical errors marred the performance, something which I've not experienced in all these years of attending the festival.

Last night my wife and I saw The Good, the Bad, the Weird. In years past, I avoided mass-market South Korean films for films I couldn't see otherwise, and probably never will again have the chance. So confident was I, that I could schedule and reserve any ticket I wanted after a few years of well-organized festivals, I am reduced this year to two mass-market films, and two first choices. The tribute film is a pale shadow of its inspiration, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Instead of the sparse irony and gentle symbolism of the spaghetti western, the South Korean version is verbose,bloated, and tediously galloping towards a finale about as rewarding as an empty treasure chest. It's one redeeming feature is Song Kang-ho's performance as «Weird» Yoon Tae-goo, easily outclassing «Bad» Park Chang-yi with his dark mascara and laconic (for Korean standards) Park Do-wan the «Good». In place of the original's infamous «Bridge» scene, the tribute seemingly opts to make violence ever more unrealistic and tedious. Finally, despite the Manchurian setting, the script sacrificed authenticity for spoof and quiet condemnation with jingoism.

Two more days, one more «choice»...I'm considering bagging it.

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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.