Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Sopyonje / Seopyeonje / South Korea / 1993

This is the first of Im Kwon-Taek’s one hundred films that I’ve managed to see and I assume — also from what I’ve heard of Chunhyang and Chihwaseon – that it’s characteristic: the stateliness, the aestheticised landscapes, the melodrama kept barely in check, and the interest in/celebration of traditional Korean culture. Here, the cultural form at issue is pansori, a kind of recitative singing, and the story follows Youbong, a none-too-successful itinerant pansori singer who adopts a son and daughter to train them up as drummer and singer respectively. The setting is post-World War II, with the inevitable decline in the pansori audience, although in fact not so much is made of this, nor is much made of the inter-personal conflicts, such as the son’s resentment and ultimate rebellion. Even the horrifying act at the centre of the film, Youbong’s deliberate blinding of his daughter, seems drained of any great emotional force or moral judgement. Instead, the centre of the film is the trio’s performance of pansori, at its most sublime when they perform to an audience of no one but themselves in the middle of nature. That’s the significance, too, of the brother and sister’s final meeting, after a separation of so many years, when they perform together without acknowledging in words that each knows who the other is; instead all the pain and emotion is expressed through the music, which Im observes with a certain contemplative distance.

by Ian Johnston | Source: DVD
28 Apr 2008 2:00 PM | Submit Comment