Film Screening
If You Were Me 2
Directed by Park Kyung-hee, Ryoo Seung-wan,
Jung Ji-woo Jang Jin and Kim Dong-won, 2005
26 March 2010
South Korea's National Commission on Human
Rights commissioned If You Were Me 2, the second
in its omnibus series. The directors contributing
short films on a human rights issue of their choice
were Park Kyung-hee ,Ryoo Seung-wan, Jung
Ji-woo Jang Jin and Kim Dong-won.
Park Kyung-hee’s short Seaside Flower follows
days in the life of Eun-hye, an elementary school
girl with Down's syndrome.
Through the swatches
of her life we see her isolation from her peers and
her single mother's struggle to make up for the evil
that kids do. Eun-hye is played by Jeong Eun-hye
who is afflicted with Down's syndrome and some of
her own experiences were brought into this short
film
Ryoo Seung-wan’s short Hey Man! is almost one
complete take of a man with multiple prejudices
that lead him to cast off every one of his friends and
fellow patrons who are sharing the communal
space of a late night restaurant.
The hilarious
character played by Kim Su-Hyun, learns the
valuable lesson that one has to be careful whom
one hates, because could leave one isolated.
Jung Ji-woo's, A Boy With The Knapsack, is a
sparingly dialogued, black and white study of the
lives of North Korean refugees in South Korea. The
pacing is taut, the images of the friends in arms
racing through the city are memorable and there is
a neat inclusion of one of the symbols of capitalism
that brings a bit of laughter to what is otherwise a
short film full of sorrow, even more sorrowful
considering it is partly based on a true story.
The last short film is Kim Dong-won’s
documentary about Korean Chinese immigrants,
titled Jogno Winter. Immigration laws in South
Korea give advantages to diasporic Koreans from
North America and Europe but not to those from
China, Russia or the former Soviet republics. |
