L-FILMS, TV-SERIES reviews
Hello Dracula11/25/2020 Hello Dracula This year I discovered South Korean television series. The main preoccupation of the South Korean TV are romance, crime, fantasy and history. According to the numerous TV series I watched I find South Korean society patriarchal and conservative therefore I was pleasantly surprised when I watched drama Hello Dracula (2020) directed by Kim Da-ye. Despite the misleading title – the name is used metaphorically for dark secrets or problems that everyone carries and tries to avoid but as the main character An Na (Seohyun) describes »the best way Dracula disappears is to face Dracula as it is in order to move forward with your life«. In the case of this story Dracula is that An Na, a primary school teacher, is a lesbian and her mother Mi Young (Ji-Hyeon Lee) has been avoiding this topic ever since she found out about it. But when An Na's girlfriend of eight years Soo Jung (Chung-Ah Lee) suddenly breaks up with her An Na's world falls apart and she doesn't want to pretend any more. However, this two episodes drama is not only about metaphorical Dracula but also refers to the French philosopher Sartre and famous quote in his play No Exit »Hell is other people« – or as An Na says herself »hell of me is from my mom«. This refers to An Na's youth when she was caught kissing a girl in a primary school and the two were dragged into a church where they were condemned and told they would go to hell due to their sinful behavior. However, when An Na tried to tell her mother that she really likes girls and that she would probably always feel loving girls her mother told her it would pass with years and that everything comes down to finding the right boy. Yet An Na's love for women didn't pass, her attraction towards women as a grown up woman has been still the same as she was a young girl. Because her mother didn't wish to accept her daughter's sexual orientation An Na started thinking there was something wrong having feelings for women. An Na's stance thus coincides with yet another Sartre's observation »By the mere appearance of the Other,« says Sartre in Being and Nothingness, »I am put in the position of passing judgement on myself as on an object, for it is as an object that I appear to the Other«. And it is exactly because of An Na's mother pretending and ignorance of her sexual orientation that An Na became depressed and emotionally distant while trying to please more her mother then herself. However, everything escalates when An Na's girlfriend Sojung sends her things via mail while asking she does the same with her things. When An Na's mother see how devastated An Na is she decides to meet Sojung on her own telling her it is shameless sending some one's stuff via mail. When An Na realizes what her mother did she gets really mad at her and that is the point when they both eventually start talking about their Dracula. Mother finally tells An Na there is nothing wrong with loving women and that she loves and accepts her the way she is and An Na's admits she was emotionally distant to her mother but she is going to change that and start including her into her life. Hello Dracula's honest portrayal and change of a daughter-mother relationship reminds me of a French-Romanian philosopher Julia Kristeva's analysis in her essay Black Sun where she suggests that we need not only a new discourse on »maternity but also a discourse on the relation between mothers and daughters, a friendly relation and a discourse that does not prohibit the lesbian love between women through which female subjectivity is born.« (Oliver, 1993: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Kristeva.html). Lesbian love means that love is not burdened by the functions of women set by patriarchal society but that women live according to their desires, needs and wishes, and still within the community and in harmony with it. Similarly, Belgian philosopher Luce Irigaray talks about the nature of individual relationships between women – especially the mother/daughter relationship. Thus she stresses the need for mothers to represent themselves differently to their daughters as from to their sons, and to emphasize their daughter’s subjectivity – taking their subjectivity seriously and allowing them the freedom to be an individual rather than some sort of clone of a previous generation of women, consciously emphasizing that the daughter and the mother are both subjects in their own right who can freely choose whom to love and marry, even if it is another woman. Despite Hello Dracula isn't about a portrayal of a lesbian couple per se it gets the closest I watched of K-series. Both, Seohyun and Ji-hyeon Lee's performances are brilliant as screenplay is excellent as well thus I am looking forward to the presentation of K-lesbian romance. It would be nice if we watched Seohyun again and saw her on screen kisses another woman in portrayal of an actual lesbian relationship. I am sure she would be terrific as well. Literature Donovan, K. S. (2003): »Luce Irigaray (1932?—)«. http://www.iep.utm.edu/irigaray/, article obtained 25.11.2020. Iragary, L. (1985). This Sex Which Is Not One. New York: Cornell University Press. Iragary, L. (1993). Sexes and Genealogies. New York: Columbia University Press. Oliver, K. (1998). »Kristeva and Feminism«. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Kristeva.html, article obtained 25.11.2020. Kristeva, J. (1989). Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press; Kristeva, J. (1987). In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith. New York: Columbia University Press. Sartre, J.P. (1986). No Exit And Three Other Plays. London: Vintage, Penguin Books. Sartre, J.P. (1956). Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. London Rutledge.
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Summerland & Moonlit Winter11/24/2020 Summerland & Moonlit Winter Summerland (UK, 2020) directed by Jessica Swale is eventually a happy love lesbian story although at first seems to be another cliche about lonely misunderstood bitter lesbian. However, as it turns out the story of the writer, feminist and lesbian Alice (Gemma Arterton) is actually about a story of a young lesbian love that survives through WWII and grows into an old age of a lesbian family with son Frank (Lucas Bond). Movie starts with Alice shooing children from the door of her cottage (“You know how you can help the aged? You can bugger off!”) so she can return to her typewriter. It is 1975 in Kent, England. From here, we go back in time to the 40s, where the younger Alice typing on the same typewriter. A loner who investigates and debunks myths and folklore, searching for the facts behind the fiction, Alice is viewed with suspicion. The village children think she’s a witch or a spy; even the adults don't trust her and perceive her as odd. When young evacuee Frank (Lucas Bond) unexpectedly comes to Alice’s, she has no time for him, insisting that he be re-homed. But inevitably a bond grows between the pair, with Alice slowly warming to the new arrival who seems to rekindle long suppressed feelings of affection and connection. Meanwhile, we go back further in time, to Alice’s meeting with Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in the 20s and the pang of their first love. “Would you think it was strange if a woman loved another woman?” Alice asks Frank, adding that “most people think it’s wicked”. But Frank is more interested in Alice’s belief that “stories have to come from somewhere” and together they start chasing castles in the sky, mirages that seem to provide a link between this world and the next. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Laurie Rose, who lends a magic-realist edge to down-to-earth details. In the central role, Arterton is terrific, relishing the opportunity to play a character who doesn’t care how others see her and last but not least, we get a lesbian love portrayed as a long-term happy peaceful relationship. Moonlit Winter (KR, Yunhui ege, 2019) is K-film by Dae Hyung Lim about two women Yoon-Hee (Kim Hee Ae) and Jun (Yûko Nakamura) who felt in love as teenagers but never forgot each other even twenty years after being apart. It is a beautifully shoot film with a love story told through epistolary method, i.e. through love letters. So called epistolary novels were popular in 18. century Europe and some of the most beautiful love stories (such as Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons, Rousseau's Julie; or, The New Heloise and Richardson's Clarissa; or The History of a Young Lady), were told in the form of letters. They usually present unrequited love and this film is no exception to the rule. Namely “Moonlit Winter” revolves around Yoon Hee, a mother who has spent many years of her life denying her sexuality and living unhappily married to her husband until she finally divorces him and unexpectedly gets a letter from her young love Yun. After being separated from Jun, Yoon-hee says that she’d thought the rest of her life was a “punishment” she had to endure. The film begins after Yoon Hee divorces her husband and begins living with only her daughter Sae-bom (Kim So-hye). One day Yoon-hee gets a letter from Otaru, Japan and her daughter opens it. After finding out about her mother’s sexuality, Sae-bom is neither disgusted nor frightened. Instead, she tries to elaborately plan a way for her mother and Jun to meet up, even going as far as to suggest to her mother that they go together on a vacation to Otaru, Japan, where Jun currently resides. As story unfolds we get to know that after the main character, Yoon Hee told her parents she was in love with a girl she had to see psychiatrist as homosexuality was perceived not normal by her parents and was forced to marry a man, however she never stopped loving and remembering her first and only love, Yun. The same was with Yun who after she broke up with Yoon Hee, moved to Otaru in Japan as her parents divorced and her father went to Japan. Yun on and off kept dreaming about Yoon Hee and every time she dreamed about her she wrote a letter but never send it until her aunt finds one of Yun's letter to Yoon Hee and sends it. After Sae-bom convinces mother to go on a trip to Otaru and sets up a meeting of her mother with Yun we get a glimpse of hope although we don't get to know what they are going to do about their relationship. And not only that, Yoon Hee quits her job and embarks on her whole new personal journey of self-liberation and setting up her life path by herself for herself and her daughter. Both Hee Ae and Nakamura acting is great as they carefully thread the portrayal of the ex-lesbian lovers who both hide their true identities known only to themselves although people around them notice signs of their sexual orientation when for instance they show no interest in men or marrying a man at all as in the Yun's case. With Moonlit Winter we come to know how people in South Korea perceive homosexuality as attitudes about the LGBTQ community slowly evolve and we learn that power of love transcends obstacles such as nationality, race, age and gender. However, when we compare the stories of Summerland and Moonlit Winter we see that nowadays South Koreans are regarding LGBTQ rights as Englishmen were in the middle of the previous century. They still have a long way to go to recognize equal rights of same sex couples, acknowledge their love as equal and make them comfortable by just being themselves. AuthorPhilosopher, publicist, editor, screenwriter with passion for LL-films and TV-shows. Archives
November 2021
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