* Warning: This post contains spoilers! *
A Blind River:
An Absurd Journey into
the Trauma of Motherhood
There are days when one misses the mark twice (though luckily, not by much). I felt that a good film could compensate for the sense of void left in me by Kim Ki-duk’s Amen. For some reason, fate led me to A Blind River, and regarding the theme, I found myself jumping from the frying pan into the fire. While Kim Ki-duk wavered around the acceptance of motherhood, director Ahn Sun-kyoung’s film chooses the torture of a young mother’s cesarean section as its opening, immediately presenting a rather direct message: the girl is stretched across the operating table like Christ on the cross.
We learn little about how this introductory sequence connects to the main plot, which follows a young man adopted by Australian parents thirty years ago. Our protagonist, played by Park Sang-hun, tries to find his biological mother with the help of his Korean girlfriend. The boy has struggled with serious identity problems since childhood; thus, searching for his roots is also a path toward inner peace. He cannot accept his girlfriend’s offer to start a family together, even rejecting her help. Following the only existing, uncertain lead, he sets out alone to the place recorded in the documents as his birthplace.
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| Director Ahn Sun-kyoung |
However, the story unexpectedly shifts dimensions, and we suddenly find ourselves in another universe. We receive little help from director Ahn Sun-kyoung as to what is actually happening; she treats the subplots of her film as if she were assembling a mosaic whose pieces refuse to fit together. Yet, one can sense the intention to form a grand tableau, primarily about the vulnerability of women, but she fails to find the appropriate tools for it.
Lucas Fedora (born Seong-chan) dismisses his girlfriend by saying he needs sleep. This sentence could suggest that the story of his upcoming journey is dreamlike, though we receive no further clues for interpretation until the very end. At the same time, the director was clearly captivated by Albert Camus’ tragedy The Misunderstanding, which she squeezed into the film without any scruples. Our protagonist arrives at a rather grim and run-down motel at the edge of the world, which, similar to Camus’ story, is operated by two lonely women. Behind the past and the hallucinations of the exhausted mother and her psychologically burdened daughter lurks some dark secret tied to a child. We have fallen into the world of the absurd, where we lose our real-world anchors: can all that is happening before our eyes truly occur? Lucas, though he does not reveal himself to the women, believes he has found his mother and sister, who do not recognize their lost relative in him. The boy cannot know that no male guest’s life is safe in the hands of these women. Furthermore, parallel to the ominous atmosphere of the motel, we follow—in an absolutely realistic portrayal—the story of another young mother giving birth in a different motel, yet there is no precise indication of its temporal or causal relationship to the absurd tale. Are we watching the story of Lucas’s birth unfolding simultaneously? The motel narrative is filled with symbolism that is at times too direct, at times difficult to decipher, and at times completely lacking any foothold for unraveling. Mystery, mysticism, and the absurd mix but do not blend, resulting in moments that are strikingly effective yet border on the ridiculous.
Ultimately, the film presents a strange, circular portrait of reality in which everyone feels miserable. If the subject is a woman, the exclusive problem is sexual vulnerability, unwanted pregnancy, and the psychological misery following the forced abandonment of a child. If it is a man (and we find none other than the protagonist), he either suffers from a mother complex and an identity crisis, or he abandons the girl he got pregnant, or he receives a brutal, animalistic portrayal—like the man in one unrefined scene who, upon seeing a woman sitting on the street, immediately attacks her with predatory sexual impulse. There is no doubt that the film focuses on a very serious social problem, but it feels more like a compulsion to meet the director's own preconceptions rather than a thorough intent to explore the issue.
The film is essentially a cinematic adaptation of Camus’ tragedy placed within a frame story. Director Ahn clearly unfolds the improbable motel story with great pleasure and a peculiar sensitivity, creating a strong visual world and atmosphere. This is enhanced by the magnificent performance of Park Ji-yeon, who plays the younger, psychologically disturbed woman; almost every moment of her acting is unforgettable. Standing out even among these is her final scene, in which (SPOILER ALERT!) the lighting and smoking of the last cigarette is, without question, Oscar-worthy. In a sense, the actor playing the male lead was in a more difficult position, as he had to navigate both realistic and absurd environments, a hurdle Park Sang-hun cleared well.
The director often gifts the viewers with painterly sequences; the visual composition of the boy leaving the girl in a yellowing field is particularly beautiful, as is the dramatic, soul-painting power of the black rock mountains. Despite its numerous problems, the film does not leave a bad impression—though, admittedly, not a very deep one either.
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