[2] The joy she feels takes over her life, and she begins attending Bible and prayer meetings. Secret Sunshine (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Do-yeon Jeon (Actor), Kang-ho Song (Actor), Lee Chang-Dong (Director) Rated: Unrated Format: Blu-ray 180 ratings IMDb 7.5/10.0 -35% $2599 List Price: $39.95 FREE Returns Prime Video $3.99 $12.99 Blu-ray $25.99 DVD $22.49 Blu-ray August 23, 2011 The Criterion Collection 1 $25.99 $25.99 $19.99 Before becoming Christian, her entire life after Jun's death was dominated and defined by intense grief and emotional pain. Secret Sunshine is a film of subtle rhythms and an almost novelistic attention to experiential detail. Csar Albarrn-Torres Amanda Barbour Tara Judah Abel Muoz-Hnonin Fiona Villella. That sort of intense emotional pain stays with you for your entire life no matter what you believe. Her journey does involve moments of self-pity, masochism and abandonment, as well as a brief, almost incongruous retreat into meaningless carnality, but is dominated by the physical and uncanny experience of separation and her escape into religious ritual, community and faith. She either realizes what she's done or she's just complete delirious as she goes outside and cries for help. It is this sense of proximity and distance, the subjective and the objective, belonging and separation, exterior and interior that will profoundly characterise the rest of the film. She seems to feel it all. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Christianity has allowed her son's murderer to feel less conflicted and upset about his death than she feels. Dennis Schwartz: Ozus World Movie Reviews, Copyright 2023 - Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews. Blood Type: O Movies. Under the disapproving scrutiny of the gossipy locals, she sets up a piano school and finds a puppyish admirer in a friendly mechanic (the popular actor Song Kang-ho, last seen here in "The Host . Shin-ae has completely embraced Christianity, but now Lee really starts to show the inadequacies of religion when it comes to dealing with grief. The film was similarly acclaimed in its American release in 2010. But grace is not the ultimate, even if unwanted or seemingly unwarranted, state or goal of Lees characters. Despite warnings from her friends, Shin-ae is optimistic that this visit will give her all the more reason to believe in God. This devastates Shin-ae and sets her down the path she goes for the rest of the film. Related Articles. Acting is an art form, and behind every iconic character is an artist expressing themselves. This drives. Unfortunately, it doesnt touch the heart as much as it thinks it does, and loses its way by becoming too plodding in its possible romance story and showing how religious exuberance might give joy but could be as dangerous as a drug when you come off its highs. ) But when, visits the prison to forgive the killer, he tells her he has found God and has peace now that he knows God has forgiven him. He runs a local garage and is a very friendly fellow. None of her supposed friends are actually willing to let her grieve on her own terms and when she starts to turn away from religion they blame her for not having faith. Dec 22, 2010. Even though god's love and purpose may briefly replace your grief, that pain and suffering will always come back up to the surface. When Jong-chan takes her brother to the railroad depot, he tells him that he's not Sin-ae's type. Even as it crescendos into tragedy, the movie keeps its grasp of everyday banality. Movie rating: 7.5 / 10 ( 8473 ) Directed by: Chang-dong Lee - Chung-Joon Lee Lee Seung Jun is a South Korean actor under Jump Entertainment. Jong-chan rejects her proposal for sex and offers to drive her home, but she physically refuses. $9.99 Buy. Shin-ae is sitting down cutting apples with a knife, but the camera is focused on her from the shoulders up. Less than halfway through Chang-dong Lee's Secret Sunshine, tragedy strikes for single mother Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon). After she visits the prison, Lee seems to suggest that Shin-ae's conversion was really just a way for her to feel like she had power over Do-seop. Because of that, she spirals back down into grief and hits an even lower point than she did earlier in the film. These beautifully modulated actions and compositions suggest the gradual possibility of acceptance and dealing with grief, the presence of Jong holding the mirror which contains a small inset photograph of her son intimating the fragile bonds of friendship and support that Shin-ae has resisted and railed against throughout. Grief can also make you lose your moral compass and any real semblance of right and wrong. No doubt the pain is authentic; certainly its more than warranted. But not so fast. In one of the greatest contemporary melodramas, Lee Chang-dongsSecret Sunshine, the heroine, Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon), is not introduced as a sad sack, despite the fact that well before we even meet her shes had a right to be. Jeons performance as Shin-ae is truly remarkable in its range, subtlety and sense of both closeness and distance. Lee has claimed the influence of filmmakers such as John Cassavetes and Robert Bresson upon his work. The central thing you should take away from Secret Sunshine is that intense grief is overwhelming, destructive and changes who you are at a fundamental level. When Shin-Ae pays him less than the amount required, the boy is killed.Jun's slain body is found by the local reservoir, and mom goes into a deep funk. - John Steinbeck. By no means is this an analysis of the entire film. At this point in the film, Shin-ae identifies as atheist, though she's had Christianity pushed on her by the pharmacist across the street. More than anything, it was the acting that bore the burden of carrying this off, and an lite class of performers were preternaturally gifted at breaking down for the camera. She is alone; for a moment, she is even shielded from the audience. The point Lee makes is that neither is particularly healthy in the long run. She decides to visit her son's murderer in prison and forgive him. Regardless, they had a child, Jin Kazama. info. In this subtly hopeless stare lies the turning point of the film. Eugene Choi (Lee Byung Hun) pulls the list of rebels Just outside her home, Shin-ae is called by a pharmacist who tells her that the solution to her problems is belief in God. 11 reviews. If you happened to be watching in the darkness of a theater, you might have felt youd been given permission to fall apart right along with them. Salvation turns Christianity into a double-edged sword that's just as capable of absolving a murderer as it is of helping a grieving mother. Senses of Cinema was founded on stolen lands. This time however, her grief takes the form of anger and retaliation against god. Her actions, reactions, emotions and motivations are both understandable and mysterious. Whether innate or self-willed, her optimism is apparent every time she puts on a happy face for her son, whos still young enough to respond to his mothers attempts to keep him entertained, distracted from their less than fortunate reality. Equal parts stalker, loyal pet, gormless friend and prospective partner, Jongs relation to the world is gentler, more child-like, unquestioning and acquiescent. At home, Shin-ae slashes her wrists. This is another really remarkable scene and the first time I saw it I actually didn't understand what was happening at first. Shin-ae decides to go and breaks down in the meeting place as the minister's hand cups the crown of her head. Is it done with self-forgetting abandon or as a power play to forestall the moral judgments of onlookers? Secret Sunshine is the fourth film made by Lee Chang-dong, inarguably one of the most significant directors to emerge in world cinema over the last 20 years. In this subtly hopeless stare lies the turning point of the film. Jong-chan also refuses and Shin-ae runs off again. "[12] A.O. By forgiving him of her own son's murder, Shin-ae could change their entire relationship and make Do-seop feel beholden to her and the extreme mercy and compassion she was displaying. Sin-ae moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. The first shot went through the president's neck but did not. We sketch out what goes into an effective Scrooge performance and which actors best conveyed the spirit of Charles Dickens infamous miser. Immediately after Jun is kidnapped, Shin-ae is (understandably) overwhelmed and simply does whatever the kidnappers tell her to do. Secret Sunshine is the fourth film made by Lee Chang-dong, inarguably one of the most significant directors to emerge in world cinema over the last 20 years. But when Juns killer tells her that he, too, has found God, and, whats more, that God has forgiven him, Shin-ae suddenly meets the depths of despair. "[13] Noel Murray, writing for the A.V. Finally, she goes back to her house and has her last psychotic break. Like the earlier scene where she sees Jun's body, the camera in this scene takes a somewhat detached but respectful position for the most part. Granted, it's hard to blame her for wanting that but the point Lee makes is that Christianity wasn't offering her a legitimate coping mechanism. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! God beats Shin-ae to the punch and she feels cheated out of the superiority and power she wanted over Do-seop. Less than halfway through Chang-dong Lees Secret Sunshine, tragedy strikes for single mother Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon). And for her part, Shin-ae, a problem solver by nature, latches onto Christianity as a practical path to healing. The film was widely acclaimed on the festival circuit, with particular and universal praise for Do-yeon's performance. She receives a phone call (implied to be from Jun's kidnapper) and draws all of the money from her bank account to pay as ransom. 2010 142 minutes. she seems to tell us, Ill show you crying. North Korea's unpredictable leader Kim Jong-un has many ways of making war upon his neighbors. The former author Lee Chang-dong(Poetry/Peppermint Candy/Green Fish) writes and directs aneffective but not a superior drama that explores the effects of grief on a young widow in modern Korea. The FBI Wall of Honor remembers Special Agent Sang T. Jun, who died on October 22, 2008 after collapsing during SWAT tryouts earlier that month. The most interesting thing about Miryang (Secret Sunshine) is the actors. This is going to be something that comes up again in a later scene and something that repeatedly comes up with characters in the film itself. He murmurs to himself, these traitors will be remembered for generations to come. Secret Sunshine. Take, for instance, a moment after Shin-ae claims to have found God. She is seemingly in a state of bliss as a result and decides to visit Juns killer in prison and forgive him. Director Lee Chang-dong Writers Lee Chang-dong Chung-Joon Lee (novel) Stars Shin-ae has spent the first act of the film already grieving the death of her husband. The actor may hate Joe Goldberg, but we still cant get enough of the psychosexy sociopath Badgley brings to life in the stalker-centric rom-dram. The scene is not between Shin-ae and the man. On the drive home she decides to visit the hairdresser. Melodrama in particular was like an alternate universe, not just because tears flowed more freely there, but also because instead of condescending to the miserable among us, the genre seemed to use every device at its disposalharrowing plot twists, invasive close-ups, swelling musicto build a case for their misery. Read full review. [3] For her performance in the film, Jeon Do-yeon won the Prix d'interprtation fminine (Best Actress) at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. At Jun's cremation, his grandmother is distraught to the point of being ostentatious to the point of vulgarity. Shin-ae is a glass-half-full type, we assume, not one of those people predisposed to sadness, not someone who easily crumbles. It wasnt that the elders around me were all that even-tempered; most of them were no less capable of lashing out in anger or indignation than the average human being. This gives her temporary relief believing that God is by her side. Or at least not a Christian. The film also shines a spotlight on an important phenomenon that is transforming Korean society the phenomenal rise of evangelical Christianity. After the funeral scene, the rest of Secret Sunshine plays out as one womans descent into purgatory, an arc that places Jeon Do-yeons exposed nerve of a performance in the company of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, Isabelle Adjani in Possession, and so many other great roles that flirt with ideas of female hysteria.But what makes Jeons work here so satisfying is the matter-of-fact way she and Lee navigate Shin-aes whiplash moods. Director Lee Chang-dong could well have cut 30 minutes out of the story, but Jeon's performance is powerful enough to keep Secret Sunshine from drowning in an ocean of tears. 270 Edit this Page. [18][19][20], Prix d'interprtation fminine (Best Actress), Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, "Festival Distinguished by Its Strong Actresses", "Cannes top prize goes to Korean film actress", "Theatrical Releases in 2007: Box-Office Admission Results", "The directors' cut: film-makers choose the best movies of the century so far", "Classics of modern South Korean cinema ranked! When she delivers less than the amount required, the boy is killed. Secret Sunshine is a remarkably complex film and this is more of a partial analysis of one element of it. Her Christian friends are almost entirely unwilling to help or sympathize and the pastor of her church actually blames her for being too weak to forgive Do-seop. They've never experienced suffering and loss like Shin-ae and they seem unable to simply sympathize with her. Minutes pass, and as the camera surveys the congregation singing, swaying, and surrendering to the spirit, we start to hear throaty, coughed-up wails. 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