Nuclear families torn apart by opposing views have been around since Cain and Abel, the Capulets and the Montagues, and the Hatfields and the McCoys. (You can touch base with me or my younger brother if you're looking to hear it play out anew.) So why does the fierce divide, and fall out feel so painfully pronounced in Yoo Hyun-mok's household war drama Rainy Days? Observed by a quiet village youth (Choe Yong-won) during the 1950s, the maternal and paternal grandparents are at each other's throats as one uncle (Lee Dae-kun) sides with North Korea while the other (Kang Seok-woo) aligns with the South. Admittedly, then as now, the fascists are dumber and meaner and more threatening but the actual cause of conflict isn't the crux of the matter. Not for Yoo.
Yoo isn't promoting neo-liberalism any more than he's attempting neo-realism: An early scene in which one grandmother (Hwang Jeong-sun) has psychic premonitions is bookended by another of that same matriarch coaxing a snake — who might be the reincarnation of her dead son-in-law — out of the front yard. For me, those mystical moments made Rainy Days not just poignant, but strange. Cinematographer You Yong-kil's muted palette creates a nostalgic feel but I wonder if period politics would've been better served by black and white. Not that I'm right and he's wrong.
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