My Son:
A Story of a One-Day Miracle
Director Jang Jin is one of the most fascinating figures in the Korean film world. As a high school student, he initially prepared for a career in music, then fell in love with the theater; after performing in numerous roles, his name eventually rose among the most prestigious theatrical directors. His path to cinema led through writing, as almost all of his stories—both for stage and screen—are born from his own pen. Moving between the genres of melodrama and gangster films, he has experienced both failure and success, yet his unique voice contributed significantly to the flourishing of Korean cinema in the 1990s.
My Son is a 2007 production, centering on a father. The story finds a rather extreme life situation as its starting point: our protagonist is a robber-murderer sentenced to life imprisonment, having already served fifteen years of his sentence. Yet, in the initial prison scenes, we see a calm man who has come to terms with his fate, applying for a reward offered for good behavior. Although he isn't even sure of himself, perhaps that is exactly what convinces the committee: he is granted a single day to visit his son, whom he last saw as a small child.
The film is the story of this extraordinary meeting, with all its awkwardness, suspicion, and the unspoken desires of both the man and his son. It isn't difficult to predict that these two people will eventually reach a moment of emotional connection. While the film moves along this well-trodden path with unsettling routine, fortunately, it deviates in the manner of its portrayal. The unusual silence and starkness of the situations lend a sense of realism to an otherwise unrealistic scenario. The use of narration to voice internal feelings acts as a sort of Brechtian alienation effect, protecting the film from the looming temptation of sentimentalism. The director’s wry humor also makes an appearance through the inclusion of "genre-bending" animated sequences.
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| Director Jang Jin |
Jang Jin plays with us quite skillfully, seemingly bringing the meeting to its conclusion. At the railway station, however, it is not just the tracks that diverge; the story itself switches to a different line. At this point, the director strikes the deeper chords of melodrama, and the acceptance of this twist depends entirely on the individual viewer's "emotional capacity"—as many may find it uplifting, while others might see it as deeply kitsch.
However, the conclusion of the story points beyond the father-son problem, offering a more universal encouragement to the issue raised by the listless lifer in the opening frames: the most agonizing thing in existence is when a person can no longer wait for anything in their life.
Since we cannot ignore that we are watching the film through European eyes, the individual, seemingly "exotic" flavors must be highlighted. By this, I mean the attitudes and relationships that appear unintentionally in the life situations depicted. The care for a mother suffering from dementia, the decisions made by the youth, and the human connections seen in prison all offer lessons, even if they might not fully represent the entirety of Korean reality.
The film is carried by Cha Seung-won’s performance in the lead, who shapes a very exciting character. In the face he shows to the world, we see a soft-featured, innocent-eyed, almost sympathetic man struggling even in his restrained manifestations; the darker character of the criminal only surfaces during the narration of his internal thoughts. Ryu Deok-hwan, in the role of the son, is a worthy partner, capable of subtly portraying the ambivalent feelings raging within the nearly grown young man.
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