Opportunity is scarce for the residents of the hilltop shanties in Bloodline: a sock-selling daughter (Um Aing-ran) gets pressured to become a "hostess"; a cigarette pedlar (Shin Yeong-gyun) can't scrounge together the doctor's fee for his wife (Lee Kyoung-hee). In this part of town, one tough-luck story is no better or worse than the other. Newspaper serves as wallpaper; your daily outfit has at least one patch. And generally, it goes downhill from there.
Neo-realism Korean-style rarely disappoints and Kim Soo-yong's group portrait of North Korean defectors making hard-scrabble lives for themselves just south of the 38th parallel is no exception. This career-making film, shot in expert black and white, covers a lot of territory too including swank nightclubs, military barracks, construction sites, and street merchants. You can see the inequities in all these environments and how inflexible the system is to change. Is it any wonder that the older generation (Kim Seung-ho, Hwang Jeong-sun, Choi Nam-hyeon) have grown dissatisfied with the life they chose? Was it worth all that trouble and effort just to get a family-sized can of papayas? The spark of hope is reserved for those who get out!
Awards: Blue Dragons for Best Film, Best Actor (Kim), Best Actress (Hwang), and Best Supporting Actor (Choi); Grand Bell for Best Film.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment