Films from the Peninsula: ‘Secret Sunshine’
Part 1 of an ongoing series on the site highlighting the best of Korean cinema!
Intro
It’s no secret that Korean cinema is having a bit of a moment these days — whether it be due to the wild success of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, the recent love for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, or just the growing interest American audiences are starting to show for international cinema. As a Korean-American filmgoer, I’ve made it a part of my mission to seek out and recommend great Korean films that aren’t very widely known, yet deserve all the recognition and acclaim they can get. That’s the aim of my latest column, Films from the Peninsula, where I take a look at a handful of stunning yet overlooked Korean movies, both old and new, for readers interested in the diverse landscape of Korean cinema. First up, Lee Chang-dong’s 2007 masterpiece, as well as the first Korean film to enter the Criterion Collection; Secret Sunshine.
I: Context
Few people outside of South Korea are fully aware of the extent to which Christianity remains woven into the country’s social fabric. Although only 30% of its population identifies as Christian, the fervent enthusiasm with which South Korean evangelists spread their message would probably make anyone think twice about the religion’s relatively low prevalence. For skeptics, a trip to the country itself will likely serve as a proper wake-up call — devout church-goers proselytize with wide smiles, handing out CDs on street corners to passers-by, and the vivacious Christian rock music that blares through church windows can often be heard from dozens of blocks away.
If there’s a South Korean filmmaker qualified enough to examine these religious institutions on a deeper level, it’s director Lee Chang-dong, who, throughout his 20-year filmography, has repeatedly proven his expert capability to peer into the nuances of South Korea’s social issues. It’s easy to call his films smaller in scope and more realistic in comparison to his genre-bending peers — Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer) and Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) are perhaps the first filmmakers who come to mind — but they often use said realism to incredible effect, displaying the country’s systemic machinations exactly as they are to show how they leave an imprint on intimate, personal lives.
Whether it be the country’s hostile treatment of disabled individuals in Oasis, the vicious totalitarianism of the 1980s’ South Korean government in Peppermint Candy, or the conspiratorial class-related anger of this generation’s youth in Burning, Lee has never once lost sight of his keen social perception, brilliantly spotlighting all of these issues through the stories of deeply complex, singular protagonists. His 2007 opus, Secret Sunshine, is no exception to this trend; in fact, it might be one of the most powerful displays of Lee’s storytelling and filmmaking skills to date.
II: The Film Itself
Secret Sunshine‘s singular protagonist is Lee Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon), a recently widowed mother who moves into a town called Miryang with her son, Jun, wanting to start a new life there after her husband’s death. Miryang has some things worth noting about it; her late husband was born and raised there, and the town’s name has a syllabic Chinese translation whose meaning is used as the film’s English title. (For those who are curious, the Korean title’s just Miryang. There’s really not much else to it.) Specifically, “mir (밀)” is the “secret” in question, while “yang (양)” is the “sunshine”, yet it’s early on in the film that Shin-ae learns just how the town lives up to the two words in its name.
When it comes to the former, it’s subtler yet much more prevalent; Shin-ae’s new neighbors — most of whom are, of course, Christians — frequently spread gossip about Shin-ae and her fraught past, all while they cordially proselytize to her with warm smiles. The latter, meanwhile, is a much rarer find, most often taking the form of the somewhat overbearingly kind Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho), a mechanic who fixes her stalled car at the film’s opening and helps her set up shop for her piano teaching business.
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