Christmas in August
on September 29, 2008
Theme: Christmas in August : cinema : Korean : laugh : mother : television
My mother and I made fun of Chinese babies while watching the film ‘Christmas in August’. Then we discovered that the film is Korean and we promptly implied all Chinese jokes to Koreans.
In this film, actor Suk-kyu Han plays the role of Jung-won, a terminally ill photographer who owns and manages a photo studio. We laughed whenever Jung-won smiled; he smiled almost all the time. We laughed when his father, who knows about the illness, stared passively or solemnly at people and things. Then Jung-won met Da-rim (Eun-ha Shim) and she too started smiling; we had a laugh fest for some time.
I recalled some popular jokes on Chinese people. How do Chinese or Koreans name their baby? They drop a utensil and name the baby after the sound the utensil makes. How do Chinese (Korean) babies see the world? In CinemaScope.
The film has some instances of abrupt editing of shots and background score but otherwise it is ‘picture perfect’. It was joyful to see the smiling Jung-won get frustrated while teaching his father to operate the VCR; or make a portrait of an old lady that would serve as a memory after her death.
I knew that he would die leaving all these people alone, including the pretty Da-rim who could then visit the photo studio and celebrate reminiscence with the cameras and machines.
I could laugh because Jung-won and Da-rim were at ease with the photography and the choreography of the scenes. The width of their smile presented the limit of human life and supremacy of moments.
And in my expansive laughter, I collected the scooter and the lanes and the studio and the colour of the film. I collected Da-rim’s skirt and her school like uniform. And they are mine, as much as they belong to director Jin-ho Hur.
[The author missed the last 30% of the movie to attend a movie preview. He planned to write about that film in this story. The film was terrible and after seeing how this story turned out, he dropped the idea.
You can understand the paradox he wanted to project. The film he saw is supposedly a comedy and the author did not laugh at all. He laughed at the ‘sad' film on television and the ‘funny' film in the theatre bored him to seriousness.]
Jung-won teaching his father to operate the VCR
Photographs: www.shuqi.org
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Comments
May be this paradox has to do with who we are watching with? Laughter is somewhat infectious, if you are grooved in, you can laugh at anything and everything. And when i feel bored, nothing is as big a torture as a failed joke.
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[...] editor wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptYou can understand the paradox he wanted to project. The film he saw is supposedly a comedy and the author did not laugh at all. He laughed at the ‘sad’ film on television and the ‘bfunny/b’ film in the theatre bored him to seriousness.] b…/b [...]
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@ Baskaran
Yes. It was a meditative laughter based on the splendidness of the film. That’s what was so groovy.
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