AN EMOTIONAL ODYSSEY. Do-yeon Jeon’s performance in Secret Sunshine
garnered her Best Actress awards from both the Korean Film Awards and the
Cannes Film Festival in 2007. (Photo courtesy of Cinema Service)
From The Asian Reporter, V18, #5 (January 29, 2008), page 20.
In the cold light of Secret Sunshine
Secret Sunshine
Directed by Chang-dong Lee
Produced by CJ Entertainment, Cinema Service, and Pine
House Film
Distributed by Cinema Service
By Patrick Galloway
The Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco is the home of
Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light & Magic, and LucasArts. Just inside the
Lombard Gate of the Presidio, the complex — four buildings surrounded by 17
acres of public parkland — features a 300-seat, state-of-the-art,
THX-certified digital theater. It was here that I was invited by the San
Francisco Film Society for a screening of the 2007 Korean film Secret
Sunshine.
Outside the theater entrance there’s a fountain with a statue of Yoda. In
the lobby stand mannequins wearing the original costumes of Darth Vader and
Boba Fett. The place is Mecca for Star Wars fans. I’d set my mind to
watch a contemporary Asian art film, but suddenly I was 13 again, visions of
X-Wing and TIE Fighters soaring through my head. Fortunately, this nostalgia
didn’t interfere with my film experience; once in my seat with the lights
low, I found myself absorbed in a truly remarkable picture.
There is no set-up in Secret Sunshine, no exposition. You simply
hit the ground running with a woman and small child by the side of the road
with car trouble. She is Shin-ae (Do-yeon Jeon), recently widowed and on her
way to her late husband’s hometown of Milyang with her son Jun (Jeong-yeob
Seon). She’s starting over. The mechanic who tows them into town, Kim
(Kang-ho Song), is a good-natured schlub who becomes smitten with Shin-ae
(to her frequent annoyance — as her brother tells him early on, he’s not her
type). Shin-ae sets up shop as a piano teacher and begins to find her way in
Milyang (which she tells Kim means "secret sunshine" in Chinese) when things
take a dark turn, forcing her into emotional turmoil.
The remainder of the film’s two hours and 20 minutes becomes an odyssey
of grief as Shin-ae feels her way through her own version of the grieving
stages — in this case isolation, depression, bargaining (with God), anger,
and more depression. There is much weeping and wailing as Shin-ae walks the
fine line between emotional upheaval and mental breakdown. It’s unclear at
film’s end whether she makes it to the final stage, acceptance. You’ll have
to decide for yourself if that’s where things are headed.
Director Chang-dong Lee (Green Fish, Peppermint Candy)
takes a hands-off approach to the narrative. The structure of Secret
Sunshine is open, verging on cinéma vérité; you don’t watch it so
much as move through it. The film is less a story than an extreme emotional
experience, a life passage. Opportunities for plot twists and character
revelations pass right by, the lack of such story elements confounding
expectation.
Much of the film is concerned with the evangelical Christian movement
currently accelerating in South Korea. Shin-ae becomes born again, but
tragedy devastates her new faith, turning her devotion to hatred of her
former church. (Her attempted seduction of a church official provides some
unexpected comic relief.)
Do-yeon Jeon’s performance is astonishing, garnering her Best Actress
awards from both the Korean Film Awards and the Cannes Film Festival in
2007. According to Director Lee, Jeon had never attempted a role of such
harrowing emotional depth, and the process was quite difficult for her. The
always-great Kang-ho Song reportedly had trouble with his character’s
regional accent as well. But out of these difficulties was born a film of
devastating impact.
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