Kim Ji-young, Born 1982:
The Silent Scream of a Generation
We see the hurried, routine movements of never-ending housework in an apartment on one of the upper floors of a modern, high-rise housing estate. Then, for a few minutes of rest, the young woman escapes to the balcony. A beautiful, young face stares expressionlessly into the great empty void; her eyes close as she seeks inner peace, but a voice suddenly calls out from the room: "Mommy!" And on the face of the woman turning back, a warm, maternal smile already shines.
The opening credits follow.
The theme chosen by director KIM Do-young—who is a woman herself and was not afraid to stir up a hornet's nest—could not be introduced more precisely. The film's latent backstory leads back several years. CHO Nam-joo, a screenwriter for a former TV series, wrote a novel fueled by her own life experiences, which was published in 2016. In Korea, this is considered the first feminist literary work, sparking a vivid debate on social media. Some welcomed it, but the vast majority rejected it with indignation. However, in May 2018, the leader of the Justice Party gifted the book to President Moon Jae-in with a recommendation, causing interest to explode. Since November 2018, the novel has sold more than a million copies.
A year later, in October 2019, the film adaptation was released, reviving the old debates. Yet, the changing times and the shaping of people's perspectives also aided in rethinking these issues.
After the opening credits, we see the husband, who is seeking help from a psychologist for his wife, although we are not yet informed about the nature of the problem or why he is doing so. The situation itself is extraordinary, as we know from many other sources that in Korea, it is still not a generally accepted practice to consult a professional for mental health issues. Later, we learn that his wife is depressed, and her condition is accompanied by a strange symptom: she occasionally speaks in the voices of other people without being aware of it.
The subsequent scenes of the film provide a catalog of the sexist manifestations raining down on young mothers and women in general. Men shamelessly make comments about them, calling women who stay at home to raise their children "parasites" and "do-nothings," and as we learn from the wife during a family dinner, even doctors are no exception. However, we are observing the life of a modern family where the man does not resemble the aforementioned peers. He helps with childcare, attends to his wife with loving care, and feels antipathy toward the bigoted, prejudiced thinking of his male colleagues. He seeks the help that can lead his wife out of trouble and understands that roles can occasionally be reversed—a man can also be a stay-at-home father if his wife's professional fulfillment and career require it.
But before we reach that point, we first receive a detailed portrait of both their families. There is the man's stubborn, old-fashioned, aggressive mother, whose thinking is entirely captive to the most traditional, hierarchical extended family model. In this family, they live the life inherited from their ancestors without question, and the mother, with foolish confidence, strives to destroy any differing aspirations. Every word of hers is a poisoned sting, which she directs with a certain relish toward the weakest link: her youngest daughter-in-law.
The woman's family is far more complex. Extremes can be measured against the mother as a point of origin, for here too, the view of men's greater value and subsequent privilege is present, but not unchallengeably—the mother herself is already rebelling against it, and the youth are brave enough to make it a subject of ruthless humor. In this family, the most important realizations are born, and they prove capable of helping one another.
 |
| Director Kim Do-young |
The film introduces us to the order of workplace hierarchies through the depiction of different timelines, showcasing a serious collection of inequalities and tasteless quips. Alongside these, it presents the strategies that enable women's survival in a humiliating environment that continuously discriminates against them. Finally, the mention of the illegal sex market infiltrating workplaces via hidden cameras is not omitted, nor are the sexual abuses faced by young girls in public places.
Extremely important statements are made in the film, formulated quite directly. Perhaps the most significant among them is that women's lives are worth as much as men's; through the efforts invested in their studies, they have worked just as hard for their advancement as men have. Director KIM Do-young occasionally uses humor to make us understand the absurdity of things. In one scene, a group of women report on the studies they pursued and how they use the knowledge acquired through years of investment. We laugh along with the actress who can only capitalize on her degree through a dramatized performance of Snow White for her child, but we cannot avoid reflecting on how many different failed life plans are sitting around that table.
Despite all this, the film avoids becoming a didactic moral tale, as the invoked phenomena blend into the main current of the story, which concentrates ever more deeply on how the couple overcomes the crisis. The greatest feat is that the wife manages to rid herself of the internalized compulsion to conform, which shackles her true self. She dares to acknowledge the sense of lack she feels regarding the fulfillment of her personality. Healing is simultaneously a process of finding herself, at the end of which—even if in a manner different from the original plans—the self-aware, successful Kim Jiyoung is born.
GONG Yoo, in the role of the husband, portrays a character we still rarely see in Korean films. He no longer represents the paternalistic head of the family providing for his members, but rather a partner who empathizes, thinks alongside his wife, and seeks his own responsibility in the events. We will long remember the scene in which his previously hidden anxiety breaks through the emotional dams.
In the role of the wife, JUNG Yumi displays an interesting duality: her ethereally fragile being remains practical throughout. Her courage is fueled by her sense of responsibility, and her key scene is beautiful—the one in which, in her most lost moments, she summons her old, confident self, whose firm steps the director visualizes for us. These steps set our heroine on the path at the end of which we can meet this confident woman again, now in reality.
The film also shows that not only the couple is changing, but the social environment as well. The wife's younger brother is an important character in this regard; despite his pampered upbringing, he slowly sees through the limitations of his father's thinking and recognizes the unfair neglect his sister suffers. Something is dawning on the father himself, though his wife had to engage in a serious confrontation with him for that to happen. Beyond the micro-environment of families, changes are also inevitable at the macro-level of society; this is indicated by the workplace training sequences, where the males yearning for their prerogatives acknowledge, with a slight wince, that they must switch to a different gear.
No comments:
Post a Comment