When Mun Jeong-Hyun set out to make a documentary about the life of his grandmother and her devotion to her family at the request of his own mother, I’m sure he had no idea what he would find. What he did uncover was a familial past riddled with scars from a divided country, speaking only in whispers about the pain they had endured. Grandmother’s Flower is a beautiful, personal movie about one family in South Korea, but it could have been about any family from that time in that area, and that is what makes it so incredible.

Mun Jeong-Hyun had always been a little afraid of his grand uncle. Grand uncle was always sitting alone mumbling scary things to himself or yelling at this family and spitting on people. So when Mun began this journey to make a film about his family, he decided to spend a little time getting to know his grandmother’s brothers and sisters. his grand uncle having passed he was left only with his journals. At first glance they were nonsensical ramblings and scripture passages, but upon deeper inspection these journals told a disturbing story of his family’s past, one that included a community – and family – divided by class and communism. Uncovering these journals and getting his family to talk about what happened was a life changing experiences for many of them, having never spoken about these issues before, largely because they were terrified of doing so.

I must admit that I am not very well versed on Korean history and so was at times hopelessly left behind. I’m not sure if it was a help or a hindrance that I knew so little, to be honest. Knowing very little allowed me to only accept what I was shown and to see the film as a personal memoir to a family, rather than a political piece. It was incredible to me the effect this had, as this film could really have been made by anyone in any place at any time. We all have hidden issues or undiscovered occurrences in our past lives and without actively going back to uncover them we will never find out. It’s very much true that we do not all have the kind of specific political strife, but we do all have stories that have never been told. The way in which Mun shot this movie only added to the effect. I’m not certain of the specifics, but it gave the effect of handled cameras and intimate conversations. Essentially, you could imagine yourself in your own living room talking to your own family. The only unintended side effect of this intimacy was that the film had little structure, as Mun discovered these incredible (and horrifying) stories as he went, essentially lacking structure. It adds charm but is occasionally difficult to follow as the story takes quick turns based on his discoveries or a family member’s confession.

Grandmother’s Flower is a beautiful film filled with emotions and politics. As a woman noted at the Q&A, this movie had a universal and global story and is, most definitely, only one of many that could be told. In the end I was very glad to have been invited into this family’s world for 90 minutes because I think that this story was important and I’m glad that it’s being heard.

{ 1 comment }

Hot Docs 2009: Old Partner

May 12, 2009

in festivals

Old Partner is a beautiful movie about a 79 year old man named Choi and his 40 year old ox. As the movie begins we discover that the ox, already well into the twilight of his life, has only about a year to live. What follows is the gentle, slow tale of a life long friendship and loyalty.

Old Partner is a very difficult movie to describe. Watching it is almost like watching a poem and it really needs to simply be experienced. The film is a meditation on a wide range of things – relationships, love, work, the meaning ascribed to one’s life, your worth to your community – and it mixes them together perfectly, by simply showing us real life. Set in a rural part of South Korea, we watch as the whole story of the Choi and the ox unfolds. They have been together for 40 years and every day they go up to the fields to do some kind of work. During the day Choi slaves over his fields, with a permanent leg injury stemming from bad acupuncture in his youth and this ox is the only reason he has been able to perform such great amounts of work over the years. This is why he also slaves over ensuring that the ox is incredibly well fed with the best grains, weeds and fodder he can find. Choi speaks often of the ox saying that it is his karma and that when the ox dies he will give it a proper burial, something unheard of for a work animal. “Beast of burden” is a term that can be ascribed to both Choi and the ox, as Choi has taken on his share of burden throughout his lifetime raising and feeding nine children to adulthood, he directly attributes the money they earned to put their children through school to the ox.

The ox itself has little personality, at lease little that it shown on camera. He walks slowly,and what looks like painfully, back and forth to the fields with his load. He and Choi are perfect foils for one another, perfect partners.

Unfortunately the director Chung-ryoul Lee was not able to be there for the Q&A afterward as his plane was landing just as the film began. I would have very much like to hear about this process during this film and, most importantly, how did this particular subject present itself for creating this film. Alas, I will have to wait for another opportunity to see the movie with a Q&A, but these are questions I’m very interested in hearing responses to, as I know many others are

Old Partner is a beautiful movie which I imagine has a very personal effect on the viewer depending on the place they’re at in life, their self-awareness with their own mortality and their understanding of their place in the world. It is an excellent movie that deserves to be seen. I strongly recommend it.

Old Partner is the recipient of the HBO Documentary Films Emerging Artist Award at Hot Docs this year.