Secret Sunshine 密阳
Jeon Do-yeon, foreground, and Song Kang-ho in the South Korean film “Secret Sunshine.”
THE South Korean director Lee Chang-dong occupies a unique, somewhat contradictory position in his country’s film scene. As the first filmmaker to serve as South Korean minister of culture (from 2003 to 2004) and a longtime advocate of the quota system that obliges his nation’s theaters to show a minimum number of local films, he has played a central role in the resurgence of Korean cinema.
Lee Chang-dong, the director of “Secret Sunshine” and a former minister of culture.
As a director, though, he does not exactly fit in. While the best-known Korean movies of the past few years are stylish, violent genre works — crime thrillers like “Oldboy” or effects-heavy fantasies like “The Host” — Mr. Lee’s films have a more subdued, literary flavor, and they tend to defy easy classification.
Despite being a fixture on the international festival circuit for some time (having won prizes at Venice, Vancouver and Karlovy Vary), Mr. Lee has been somewhat overshadowed by flashier compatriots like Park Chanwook and Kim Ki-duk. “Secret Sunshine,” his fourth film, is his first since leaving office and also the one that has brought him the most attention. It had its premiere in May at the Cannes Film Festival (where its star, Jeon Do-yeon, was named best actress), recently played in Toronto and Telluride and will be screened at the New York Film Festival on Monday and Tuesday. (The film is awaiting a distribution deal for the United States.)
As “Secret Sunshine” begins, Shin-ae (Ms. Jeon), a young widow from Seoul, is moving with her little boy to her late husband’s hometown, a provincial city called Miryang. (The literal translation provides the English title.) Under the disapproving scrutiny of the gossipy locals, she sets up a piano school and finds a puppyish admirer in a friendly mechanic (the popular actor Song Kang-ho, last seen here in “The Host”). Before long a blindsiding tragedy sends the protagonist — and the film — spinning into an altogether different orbit. As Shin-ae agonizes over the meaning of suffering and the mystery of salvation, the movie evolves into a provocative study of madness and belief.
“One of the most important things to me was to find a way to portray things that are not visible to the naked eye, faith being one of them,” Mr. Lee said, speaking via a translator in Toronto this month.
A former high school teacher and novelist who turned to filmmaking in his 40s, Mr. Lee, now 53, has a knack for depicting the invisible. His films are intricate character portraits that succeed at animating the larger forces at work in Korean history and society.
His first feature, “Green Fish” (1997), is a gangster drama rooted in the dark side of the so-called Asian economic miracle. “Peppermint Candy” (1999) mingles personal and national history, recounting the life of a troubled man in reverse chronology, through two decades of defining traumas. The movie rewinds all the way to the Kwangju massacre of 1980, when the government cracked down on a pro-democracy demonstration, killing at least 200 protesters, many of them students. (That was the year Mr. Lee graduated from his university, with a degree in Korean literature.)
“Oasis,” which won several prizes at Venice in 2002, chronicles the forbidden romance between a mildly retarded ne’er-do-well and a young woman with cerebral palsy. Mr. Lee leavens his forthright naturalism with sprinklings of magic realism, as if insulating the unlikely lovers from the hostile prejudices of the outside world. (Both “Peppermint Candy” and “Oasis” are available in the United States on DVD.)
“Secret Sunshine,” perhaps Mr. Lee’s most unflinching film, acknowledges its heroine’s need for spiritual succor even as it takes a coolly skeptical look at the role of evangelical Christianity in Korean society. “Christians are quite a powerful group in South Korea, and people on the production team were worried about what the reception would be,” Mr. Lee said. When the film opened in South Korea in May, he added, “some people were critical, but there was also positive feedback. Some pastors were recommending the film to their church members.”
According to Sung-Deuk Oak, an assistant professor of Korean Christianity at the University of California, Los Angeles, about a third of South Koreans are Christian and the majority of South Korean Christians are conservative, evangelical Protestants. Mr. Oak said that “Secret Sunshine” was a hot topic of conversation in churches and the news media in South Korea this year.
“Non-Christians are uncomfortable because the movie has a lot of Christian things,” he said. “Christians are uncomfortable because Christian messages and activities are depicted in a simple and superficial way.”
Still, Mr. Oak added, Mr. Lee’s film raises “heavy theological questions” and is nowhere near as condescending or stereotypical in its portrayal of the devout as “Lady Vengeance,” the concluding installment in Mr. Park’s revenge trilogy. The film also deals with forgiveness and redemption, albeit in a very different way.
Mr. Lee said he had been careful not to exaggerate or caricature Christian rites. “In terms of the services and prayer meetings, it was very realistic, more or less a documentary approach,” he said. “If people feel uncomfortable or find some elements of it a little ridiculous, they might be admitting there’s a problem with the way Christianity is practiced in Korea.”
A good part of the film’s power derives from the range and intensity of Ms. Jeon’s performance. Mr. Lee has a reputation for demanding many takes. “I am notorious for giving actors a hard time,” he said with a smile. “I believe that acting should not be about actions, but reactions.” By the end of the shoot, he said, his lead actress “was starting to hate me.” But, he added, “Maybe that helped her since her character really hates her God at the end of the movie.”
Asked about his own religious beliefs, Mr. Lee quoted Ludwig Wittgenstein — “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” — and added, “That’s my position on God and faith.”
“Secret Sunshine” ends on a note at once ambiguous and hopeful. Its limpid, humble approach to suffering and grace suggests something like “Breaking the Waves” stripped of mysticism, or a rationalist version of “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”
“Shin-ae is always looking up and never at the ground,” Mr. Lee said, pointing out a recurring motif. The film opens with a wide shot of the sky and concludes with the camera trained on a patch of earth. “I wanted to show that the meaning of life is not far from where we are,” he said. “It’s not up there. It’s here, in our actual life.”
Lee Chang-Dong Lets the Sunshine In
South Korean filmmaker illuminates life’s emotional twists and turns
By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 5:00 pm
Built around a revelatory performance by Jeon Do-Yeon, which was justly rewarded with the Best Actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Secret Sunshine begins as the story of how Shin-Ae adjusts to her new surroundings and, prompted by the evangelical proselytizing of a born-again pharmacist, takes stock of her faith (or lack thereof) in some higher power. Then, without warning, the film transitions into nail-biting thriller territory, and after that into the kind of allegorical portrait of human suffering favored by Lars von Trier and Robert Bresson. If it seems difficult to imagine how one movie could possibly be all of those things, it may be even harder to conceive of the agility with which Lee, a former high school teacher and novelist whose résumé also includes a recent stint as his country’s cultural minister, guides the film through its corkscrew reversals of light comedy and high melodrama, utter despair and flickerings of hope.
To say much more would be to risk violating the delicate construction of Secret Sunshine, which is that rare movie where it is as difficult to predict what will happen 10 minutes in as it is two hours later. There is no harm, however, in saying a few things about Lee Chang-Dong, whose films have failed to attract an international cult audience comparable to those attained by his countrymen Kim Ki-Duk ( The Isle ) and Park Chan-Wook ( Oldboy ), but who may well be the most gifted Korean director of his generation. Void of extravagant bodily dismemberments or elaborate torture-revenge schemes, Lee’s films favor the perils and pitfalls of everyday life, the search for belonging, and the tension between the past and the present. In the oddball romance Oasis (2002) — the only one of Lee’s four films to secure a U.S. theatrical release — a young woman afflicted with cerebral palsy begins an affair with the ex-con who raped her. In Peppermint Candy (1999), a man’s life story is told backward over two decades, ending with tragedy and beginning with triumph. During his recent visit to New York, I spoke to Lee about his new film, his unusual methods and the mysteries of faith.
L.A. WEEKLY: It seems impossible to talk about this film without discussing its abrupt and unpredictable changes in tone. What interested you about telling a story in this way?
LEE CHANG-DONG: This is a film about life, and in life many things happen, but we can never be sure of what’s going to happen next. This mysterious and secretive aspect of what life is about — from the beginning, that’s what I wanted to show.
And did you feel confident that the audience would follow the characters willingly on this strange journey?
There are films where the viewer just kind of flows along with the story; I didn’t want to take that approach. The approach I wanted to take was a film where I would meet the viewer within the film. In Korea, when the film was released, you could hear people in the bathrooms of the cinemas afterward cursing the film. People said, “Why did the film end that way?” They got annoyed. But this is a film where, even though people may criticize it in the bathroom, by the time they get home they won’t have forgotten the film.
What was it about the city of Milyang that made you want to set a film there?
It was the name of the city to begin with, which means “secret sunshine” when it’s literally translated. But Milyang itself is a place that there isn’t anything particularly special about. It’s very ordinary — a typical city in the provinces. It’s the kind of place where, if somebody were to come down from Seoul, they would say, “Why would anybody want to live here?” So, that kind of ironic contrast was of interest, between the name and then the place itself.
The first image in the film is that of a clear blue sky seen through a car windshield, and throughout the film there are many other shots of the sky and the characters looking up at it. What are they looking for?
Shin-Ae is the type of person who’s always looking for the meaning of life; we all have that part of us. She has wishes and hopes and she wants to find meaning, but for her that meaning is always somewhere off in the distance, and the sky is something that’s also off in the distance. I wanted to throw this question out to the audience: In our lifetime, what is God? And if there is a God, what is the hidden truth? If there is a God, then I think the meaning of God is that we need to find reality for ourselves right here on Earth, in terms of the meaning of life, grace, redemption, all of that. It’s all here right before us. Yes, the film starts with a shot of the sky, but it ends with a shot of the ground.
AFI Fest will screen Secret Sunshine on Fri., Nov. 2, at 6:45 p.m. and Sun., Nov. 4, at 3 p.m.
"Secret Sunshine" : anti-mélo pour une femme en enfer
LE MONDE | 16.10.07 | 16h34 • Mis à jour le 16.10.07 | 16h34
Une scène du film sud-coréen de Lee Chang-dong, "Secret Sunshine" ("Milyang"). | DIAPHANA FILMS Une scène du film sud-coréen de Lee Chang-dong, "Secret Sunshine" ("Milyang").
DIAPHANA FILMS
A utant vous dire que si le soleil brille dans ce film qui se passe sous un ciel bleu d'azur, ce qui y arrive au personnage principal tient de l'enfer. Le rayon bienfaiteur évoqué par le titre est bien caché au plus profond des êtres. Lee Chang-dong, ancien ministre sud-coréen de la culture, manie-t-il l'ironie ou croit-il que ses concitoyens ont la faculté de surnager dans les pires tourments ?
L'avis du "Monde"
À VOIR
[-] fermer
Comment surmonter des douleurs extrêmes ? C'est déjà ce qu'il avait filmé dans Oasis (2002), une histoire d'amour radicale entre un repris de justice un peu simplet et une jeune fille qu'une paralysie cérébrale condamnait aux mimiques disgracieuses et au fauteuil roulant.
PÉRIPLE RÉGÉNÉRATEUR
Lee Chang-dong a décidé de "montrer le pire", qu'il s'agisse d'une passion entre deux amants au physique ingrat ou, ici, des ravages qu'exerce la société sur les habitants d'un pays longtemps oppressé par la dictature. Lee, son héroïne, va voir tous les malheurs lui tomber sur la tête. Lorsque le film commence, elle est veuve, fuit Séoul et vient s'installer dans la ville natale de son défunt mari. Le lieu s'appelle Myriang, ce qui signifie "abri du soleil secret".
Il faut savoir que le mot d'ordre, en Corée, est à l'éloge de la patrie, à la quête des racines, au retour à la terre et aux vieilles valeurs. Pour Lee, ce périple régénérateur commence mal : elle tombe en panne avant d'arriver à bon port. Elle est remorquée, donne des cours de piano et tente de s'intégrer. Mais on la croit riche parce qu'elle a prétendu vouloir acheter un terrain, et voilà que son fils est kidnappé, contre rançon. Peu après, le gamin est retrouvé assassiné. La jeune femme va tenter de renaître en fréquentant une secte de protestants, puis tenter de se suicider, être internée dans un hôpital psychiatrique, et finir par ne plus compter que sur elle-même.
Secret Sunshine est donc un mélo, genre très prisé en Corée, mais un mélo pas comme les autres. Il ne s'agit pas d'y montrer comment l'héroïne réagit en Mère Courage et finit par triompher de l'adversité : littéralement anéantie, Lee hurle son désespoir dans une chapelle, la douleur lui oppresse la poitrine, elle se mutile, dérive, inexorablement condamnée à une tragique solitude. Il ne s'agit pas non plus de prouver que Lee peut compter sur le soutien de la société, c'est l'inverse.
Secret Sunshine est une impitoyable étude de moeurs qui renvoie dos à dos la famille (scène d'invectives lors des funérailles du fils), les voisins (dos tournés et hypocrisies), les chrétiens conservateurs et fanatiques (prônant le culte de l'Esprit, les chants mystiques, mais tentés par l'adultère, à l'image du pharmacien inhibé, et n'offrant à la victime d'autre réconfort que le culte des prières, c'est-à-dire un masque pour cacher la réalité)... Lee est entourée de braves gens figés dans leurs égoïsmes.
LÉTHARGIE, SOBRIÉTÉ
Il ne s'agit pas, enfin, d'un film flamboyant, lyrique, habile à tirer les larmes : la beauté de Secret Sunshine est dans sa léthargie, sa sobriété, son économie d'effets, sa neutralité, sa façon de raconter l'histoire sans avoir l'air d'y toucher. Lee Chang-dong mine le mélodramatique de l'intérieur, égrenant le calvaire de son héroïne avec la même distance qu'il met pour filmer la disparition du fils et la découverte de son cadavre.
A aucun moment, il ne charge ses personnages (ils ne savent pas ce qu'ils font), pas même le déséquilibré qui a tué l'enfant. Lorsque Lee va lui rendre visite en prison, pour lui accorder son pardon, elle tombe sur un illuminé inerte, imperméable aux sentiments. Même cette démarche généreuse est inutile : l'homme se moque de son pardon, il a été décervelé par la religion, prétend avoir été déjà pardonné par Dieu. Le drame de Lee n'est pas tant dans les épreuves qu'elle traverse et sa manière de les surmonter (y compris lorsqu'elle tente d'apaiser sa misère sexuelle), que dans l'incapacité des autres à la comprendre, à lui proposer autre chose que l'amour de Dieu, à percevoir l'invisible de son être, à vivre avec elle une relation authentique.
Symbole de ce refus inconscient du passage à l'acte, un garagiste jovial, bonne pâte, combinard et éternellement épris d'elle, qui lui colle aux basques, mais impuissant, incapable de passer de l'indéfectible affection à une déclaration, une relation amoureuse. Le choix, de la profession de ce soupirant emprunté est un cruel clin d'oeil, un signal inquiétant quand on sait que son époux est mort d'un accident de la circulation.
Le film égrène les strophes d'une fatalité. La disparition du fils est annoncée dès le début par des scènes prémonitoires, lorsqu'il s'amuse à faire le mort ou à se cacher dans la maison. Secret Sunshine commence par un plan sur le ciel et finit par un plan sur la terre.
Film sud-coréen de Lee Chang-dong avec Jeon Do-yeon, Song Khang-ho. (2 h 22.)
Jean-Luc Douin
