강미 | learning koreanThe Unforgiven | 용서받지 못한 자
Yoon Jong-Bin may be a baby-faced twenty-seven-year-old, but he’s also a young director with a bright future. The Unforgiven, his graduation thesis project at Chung-Ang University, is a powerful story of relationships shaped during compulsory South Korean military service. The film was released at the 2005 Pusan International Film Festival and was screened in the Un Certain Regard category at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
I saw The Unforgiven at The University of Notre Dame last night. Yoon answered audience questions after the screening. That I got to experience two of my favorite things—Korea and film—in the same evening—has but one clear precedent—a 1989 screening of an execrable piece called America, America. Fortunately, The Unforgiven more than makes up for the other.
Some highlights:
-Although I knew better, it was still hard to disregard the apparent gay undertone of the movie (which goes more to show I’ve been away from Korea for a while). That easy same-sex intimacy one finds among Koreans looks very different to Western eyes. Time after time, Seung-Yong appears to be about to tell Tae-Jung what he came to say, and every time I held that in the back of my mind as a possible reason, even though I knew that wasn’t it. Knew it. I wasn’t surprised when an audience member asked the director about it. He said that he’s been asked about it everywhere he’s gone except, of course, in Korea.
-Humor stands out in a movie that is is seldom heartwarming and mostly sad. In one brief bedroom scene, Tae-Jung interrupts the lovemaking when he answers a telephone call from Seung-Yong. In the background, Ji-Hae sits up, pulls out a mirror, and begins to primp.
-Several scenes were long (five minutes or more), one-camera takes (the best of the lot took place in what looked like a hallway). Yoon said that some of those long shots took up to thirty takes, which must have been grueling for the actors.
-Quite a few audience members asked about Korean military service. In his most amusing answer, Yoon said that Korean soldiers do a lot of cleaning up, and laundry, and typing, and other mundane tasks, so much so that he used to forget why he was in the army. (North Korea, take note.)
-The subtitles were both a blessing and a curse. I would not have made it through without them, but sometimes I missed them completely because I was so intent on listening. Some of the dialogue reinforced some vocabulary and patterns I have just learned this week, which was immensely satisfying.
You can find more information about The Unforgiven at the Korean Film Council, Koreanfilm.org, and Variety .
I went alone (octaviuz is MIA, Insun is in North Carolina, and no one else wants to see a Korean movie with me), but after the Q&A I recognized the son of our former Korean tenants. Chatting with him eventually led to an invitation from Aaron Magnan-Park, an assistant professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre to a local Korean restaurant for the after-party, where I briefly wowed one waiter with my 안영하세요 ability and no one at all with my karaoke rendition of Edelweiss. The food and the conversation were great, and I left with a signed poster and ticket, the name of the movie written by Yoon, and a few new film contacts.
More images to follow. But not any singing or eating ones. No one looks good like that.
Posted by kangmi on October 3, 2006 at 4:18 PM0 comments