Park Bae-il
Social&Human Interest
Sung-hee, a lifelong welder, loses a finger while handing a press. Due to severe depression, he lacks sleep and becoming gaunt looking. He is having heavy thoughts and thinking it may be better to die than live like this. Soo-young who went on an all-night sit-in demonstration for 130 days cries out ¡®Let¡¯s live together!¡¯ Soo-young, who always had a bitter grin and walked the collapsed town with a limp, climbs up the watchtower, a prison in the sky, leaving a message to protect the community. Six years after Nawatsu has settled in Korea, he found a trading company. His dream of having his family in Korea comes true. Nawatsu thought everything would work out fine but when he sees his son¡¯s tears and his wife¡¯s sigh, he is faced with the prejudice and discrimination he had experienced before. The excavator ploughs its way through the tightly lined-up factories and breaks down the houses and factories without a break. Firecrackers are set off over the people¡¯s cheers and buildings to attract advanced knowledge industry rise high in the grey sky. Sasang which seemed to be firm with great operating machines collapses like a sandcastle in the rain and people¡¯s lives are isolated. Will they be crushed like this, with their hearts falling out of control? Sung-hee, Nawatsu, and Soo-young quietly move to support their lives.
Space is engraved with the history of individual lives and community, embracing the relationship network and power structure of society. The capital of neo-liberalism has expanded its tax base by reorganizing such space. The current Korean society is struggling with the craze of development. In the fine dust-filled sky, numerous cranes float around with construction materials. Not only that, the crazy wind of capital separates labor from life, taking people¡¯s time away and enriching body and mind. The film stocks up the traces of the ¡°idea¡± that the capital has scratched as well as the traces of ¡°life¡± and ¡°body¡± of the main characters who have been constantly exploited. Furthermore, it reveals the labor and existence that the capital tried to hide. This journey will be a gloomy light. With such light, the film demonstrates as a landscape the slow steps of Sung-hee that dreams of a life of a laborer, Nawatsu that resists discrimination, and Soo-young that continues activities of solidarity for the community. Along this less stimulating landscape, we will find a lamp that will cause a small crack in this capital-tainted city.
Park Bae-il
Legend of Miryang2 – Miyang Arirang (2014)Legend of Miryang 1 (2013)Sea of Butterfly (2011)Byeonhwa (2011)Cruel Season (2010)