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Searching for Answers on the Road: Road Movies

2018-09-01 ~ 2018-10-31
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Searching for Answers on the Road: Road Movies
Two men and one woman, nowhere near ordinary in their appearances, cross paths on the road and head to an unknown destination. Sometimes not knowing what they want or where they are headed, they walk the path together. They travel together, sometimes to find a better place and sometimes to find their ideals. Their journey, however, is not easy as thought. Because it is a path taken with strangers, the travelers argue with each other, sometimes to ceasing the partnership and venturing out individually. As they walk on the road, they experience despair in their inability to reach their ideals, but also find new goals in their lives. Day construction worker Yeongdal, a recent ex-con and inmate Mr. Jeong, and a runaway bar girl Baekhwa journey like this together in the film “The Road to Sampo” (Lee Man-hee, 1975), and so do Dongchil, Yukdeok, and Hyejeong in “Declaration of Idiot” (Lee Jang-ho, 1983) as they say goodbye and meet again on their life’s journey. “Whale Hunting” (Bae Chang-ho, 1984), is also similar in that the characters embark on a trip to find the speech and home that Chunja lost.

Along with “The Road to Sampo,” the original Korean road movie, “Declaration of Idiot” and “Whale Hunting” that run parallel with the Korean New Wave Cinema of the 1980s, as well as “Mandara” (Im Kwon-taek, 1981) and “The Man with Three Coffins” (Lee Jang-ho, 1987), are presented in the KMDb VOD Special for September and October. The characters in these films make the audience ask why they began their journey together, what were they feeling on the path they were walking, and what answers await at the end of the long road. In this fall season with fresh breeze that came after months of sweltering heat, what answers will we find in these films?


Films
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    01. The Road to Sampo (Sampoganeun gil) Lee Man-hee, 1975
    “The Road to Sampo,” the original Korean road movie, is a posthumous work by the director Lee Man-hee. This film is a road movie, a genre rarely found in the history of Korean cinema. It is a masterpiece featuring a kind perspective of the director toward people who were marginalized in the process of modernization in Korea.
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    02. Mandara (Mandala) Im Kwon-taek, 1981
    This film is one of masterpieces by Im Kwon-taek. Written based on Buddhism, it is a film adaptation of a novel by Kim Seong-dong. The path that the main character Beop-un takes is a path of agony and enlightenment, life and death, and samsara and nirvana.
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    03. Declaration of Idiot (Baboseon-eon) Lee Jang-ho, 1983
    Beginning with the suicide of a film director, this work represents the Korean New Wave Cinema movement that focused on criticizing the Korean society in the 1980s through satire and humor. The journey taken by the characters, who lead low lives at the margins of the society, award them with a sense of liberation, however brief.
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    04. Whale Hunting (Goraesanyang) Bae Chang-ho, 1984
    This popular film attracted 400,000 viewers in Seoul when it opened. Following the journey of characters who are alienated from the world, this film highlights people who have found the deep friendship and meaning of life, using the tools of humor and satire. In particular, the character Minwoo (played by Ahn Sung-ki), who lives freely without being bound to anything, gives this work a humanistic flare.NEW
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    05. The Man with Three Coffins (Nageuneneun gil-e-seodo swiji An-neunda) Lee Jang-ho, 1987
    Sunseok wishes to bury his dead wife in North Korea, where she is from, but he cannot. Instead of the place that cannot be visited anymore, he heads to the Korean east coast, on the way to which a nurse lady joins his journey. The long-take scene showing the stretching road also shows the fate of the two characters, in which they cannot settle down in any place.
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    06. Hello God (An-nyeonghaseyo Hananim) Bae Chang-ho, 1987
    Byeongtae, a young man with cerebral palsy, embarks on a journey to Gyeongju, a city he has never been. On the road, he meets and travels with Minwoo, a traveling poet, and Chunja, a fully pregnant mother. As Minwoo and Chunja join the road on which Byeongtae travels to Gyeongju, a luxury he could not afford in the past because of his physical condition, the three companions build friendships as they care for each other. Will they be able to make it to Gyeongju? Will Byeongtae fulfill his childhood dream that was not met in the past?
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    07. Gagman (Gaegeumaen) Lee Myung-se, 1988
    A third-class cabaret comedian and an aspiring film director, Jongsae and his cronies chase Seonyeong into his home. Then, there is Doseok, a barber who wants to act in a film. Through a series of coincidences, Jongsae obtains a rifle previously owned by a military deserter who committed suicide on his cabaret stage. At the behest of Seonyeong, who wants to escape from the doldrums of her life, he goes on a bank heist guised as a film shoot. After the crime, Jongsae, Seonyeong, and Doseok begin to run from the police who are tracking them. Their run from the law, however, looks less like a thrilling chase and more resembles a scene from road movies, in which three people run together toward their friendship and dreams.
List

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