movie of the week
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 29, 2010
Il Mare (2000) 1pm, SBS OneA Korean film €” with an Italian title €” this enchanting story from Lee Hyun-Seung offers luscious romantic propositions, a sense of magic and engaging visual delights. It is well worth a second look for those who've enjoyed it previously and strongly recommended for those who have not. Anyone who found value in the remake, The Lake House (2006), with Sandra Bullock, can suit themselves.Vacating a stylish lakeside house during the last weeks of 1999, voice-over actress Eunju pops a Christmas card into the letterbox outside, asking the next tenant to forward any mail to her new address. She is unaware that the mailbox has curious properties or that she is about to enter into a correspondence with the house's previous tenant, Sunghyon, a disillusioned architect living in the shadow of his celebrated father.Lonely, distracted and suffering a loss of his muse, Sunghyon has emulated Ayn Rand's Howard Roark and taken to construction labouring €” much to the distress of colleagues who appreciate his formidable talent. Eunju is equally lonely €” emotionally paralysed and unable to eradicate painful yearnings for her ex-lover, Jihoon, who abandoned her for another woman while studying abroad.What makes her increasingly intimate exchanges with Sunghyon so tender is the fact that they seem to be living in two separate timeframes (his two years behind hers in 1997). Both have a dog named Colla and are somehow able to exchange material gifts, even though they cannot meet. They have, in fact, met but in fleeting interludes €” uninformed by any awareness of the connection that now unites them.An assignation is arranged but destiny denies them both a rendezvous and resolution. Remembrance of times past and anticipation of times ahead play a crucial part in the story, which is heartfelt and told meticulously by the director, who blends the artful sensibilities of a cooking program and the chic look of commercials in a strongly affecting tale.Despite its occasional soppiness, it builds gradually to a wrenching climax when Eunju begs Sunghyon to intervene in his time zone (her past) to rescue her relationship with Jihoon. Realising if he does, he will lose her, Sunghyon nonetheless attempts to fulfil her wish, which will have tragic consequences and accentuate the tyranny that time represents in lives either divided by circumstance or imprisoned in regret. A metaphor for the two Koreas, perhaps?The grandfather principle attending any timewarp/parallel-existence scenario is employed artfully. So sweetly, in fact, it would be a hard heart that failed to respond to its emotional intensit.Doug Anderson
© 2010 Sydney Morning Herald
