Kim Yoon-seok: ANOTHER CHILD (2019)

김윤석: 미성년

You can find the original article in Hungarian here →

Another Child:
The Painful Birth of Maturity

Had I not known the director's identity, I would have bet on this being the work of a female director, given the rich arsenal of feminine nuances presented throughout the film. But this was not the case; in fact, quite the contrary, as we have previously seen director Kim Yoon-seok primarily as an actor in roles within decidedly masculine, often grim stories (The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, The Fortress, 1987: When the Day Comes, etc.). This exceptionally rich acting career reached its turning point after nearly a quarter of a century when Kim Yoon-seok stepped behind the camera to create his debut film as writer-director.

The film's original title is 미성년 (Miseongnyeon), which means "underage," but in the context of our film, it primarily signifies "immaturity." This points out how carefully one should handle English titles, as they can lead the original content astray. Another Child suggests that the focus of the story lies in some sort of conflict surrounding or between children, which is partly true. However, what the Korean title emphasizes is far more important: immaturity. The central problem of the film is the investigation of how we can live our lives as mature, adult human beings, or how we can grow into that task.

Director Kim Yoon-seok

How easy it is to grasp and savor the secret pleasures offered by a situation, especially when compensating for a void created by a cooling relationship! And how suddenly oppressive it becomes when being caught forces one to face how many lives are deeply affected by what was thought to be a lighthearted game!

The characters of our story form two very different families. The male member of a well-to-do couple (portrayed by the director, Kim Yoon-seok, himself) strays and pursues a secret affair with a female member of another, broken family (Kim So-jin). Each family has a teenage daughter (Kim Hye-jun, Park Se-jin) who attend the same school and come into contact due to the revelation of the secret relationship. Initially, of course, their interaction is extremely hostile, exacerbated by the social divide between them. They are forced to face a shocking fact: not only did their parents stray, but as an irrevocable consequence of the liaison, the arrival of a baby is expected.

Soon, everyone must face the new situation. The adolescent girls carry a double burden; understanding and emotionally processing the situation would be difficult enough to accelerate their own process of becoming adults, but on top of this comes the experience of discovering their parents' true personalities—which can hardly be called a cloudless revelation.

However, despite their prominent central position, the two girls are not the only focus of the film; we receive a portrait of the other characters that is just as nuanced. There is the unhappy mother-figure of the "complete" family (Yum Jung-ah), who tries to master her own emotional misery with a deep breath and, gathering strength, starts toward something amidst the ruins. There is the spineless father, who has no idea what to do with the situation he created and only wants to flee from himself and everyone else. There is the mistress expecting the child, whose fatal naivety led her once again into an irresponsible relationship, and who feigns emotional blindness to deflect the unfolding chaos. Adults by age stand opposite their children, but the real question is: who proves to be more mature—the parents or the daughters?

The beauty of this film is that no character remains static; everyone ascends a step higher on the path of self-knowledge and the recognition and understanding of the other's situation, even if great differences remain. We do not know if forgiveness will be born between those who sinned against one another, but the film does not play for such theatrical solutions. It is far more important that, despite everything that happened, the characters speak to one another. Everyone with everyone, because—as in the intricate and brilliant scripts of Korean dramas—in this story, all involved parties come into direct contact.

In the final outcome, however, a generational fracture is recognizable—the director seems to cast more votes of confidence for the youth, who must stand their ground not only for themselves but for their ancestors as well. The final scene can hold many interpretations; its shocking content most strongly indicates that we are dealing with a symbolic message. One possibility for unraveling it is that the director is packaging sacred content into a profane execution: the three children seem to become siblings to one another through a ritual similar to a blood pact, becoming allies in a defensive and defiant league for accepting the responsibilities that come with life.

A further merit of the film is the abundance of cinematic references that speak without words about social relations and situations: the workplace revelry in the opening scene, the figure of the drunken man hitting on a minor next to his mistress in the shop scene, the portrayal of the couple's estranged life, the presentation of the wife's economic status through the fact that all family assets are in the husband's name, the portrait of the biased teacher—the list could go on. It is striking that there is no positive male figure in the story, as both father figures are inadequate not only for the parental task but also for navigating life. This is why we may feel that the straying husband's apology carries no emotional catharsis. This is particularly interesting when compared with the story's inadequate mother figure: the woman fleeing from her own responsibility into almost simple-mindedness eventually receives the opportunity for her mask to fall, and in her case, we feel the tragedy of her pain.

Although every conflict in the film is universal and thus perfectly familiar to us, it may still remain with us as a lingering question: what is it that gives us a sense of "otherness"? This is not easy to answer, for the explanation may lie not in the film itself but in the underlying cultural characteristics—explaining why we might marvel at the characters' reactions and interactions. For while jealousy, anger, and despair are present—all the negative emotions stemming from the situation—somehow these do not become dominant. There are no large egos that would break down or stage a "grand scene." Instead, a solidarity born from a peculiar empathy grows stronger, which not only brings the characters of the conflicts to the same table but even triggers gestures of care toward the opponent—at least as far as the female characters are concerned. Although this may not have been the director's explicit intention, it is through this culmination that the film became an exceptional experience for me. I sincerely hope that in his future works, the scale, which currently seems to tip in favor of women in the portrayal of genders, will become balanced.