Cowardice: the basis of brutalness

Spoiled by the perfect characters in Korean melodramas, where even “revenge” makes the roles “innocent”, my eyes got uncomfortable at the first sight with the main role in Peppermint Candy. The first act was set up near a railroad bridge. Along with sparking sunshine, flowing creek and a crowd of long-unseen friends, the setting was supposed to be a lovely picnic place, which once it had been. The appearance of Hongja, the main male role, ruined the peaceful picture: He wore a faint faint smile, seemed to be waiting to be infuriated. Singing a song about losing one's dearest, he finally crossed the line between normal and insane. However, even when Hongja was standing on the tracts, yelling to “attract” a train to stop his ugly life, the director didn't make him the focus of the scene. “He will not kill himself. I know those kinds of guys.” The grim sentences unexpectedly aroused my emotion resonance. Viewing the main character as a small figure yelling to death with few people's attention, I started to know that Peppermint Candy is not a film about the glorious humanity, but a portrayal of the common coward being run over by social trends, by the upper power.

Lee Chang-dong, both the director and the writer of this movie, is compared to working as a sociologist (while Kim Ki Duk is compared to as a philosopher). It is said that he once planned to open a restaurant in Peking in the early 90th, so as to observe the ordinary there. And in his movies, he indeed acts as a storyteller narrating the life of a small figure in the large social background. This time he chose an “executioner” in the Gwangju Massacre, applying the two decades reverse chronology to account for the character's changing into a brutal and callous state. The whole movie was built on such a tension of whether Hongja deserves sympathy, indicating Hongja was always hiding some “eternal sunshine” --- metaphorized into peppermint candy and his first love.

I, too, sought for or just waited for the point I could after all make some concession. However, I just fell into a deep disappointment. All Hongja's detachment from “innocence” is rooted in his cowardice. The peppermints crushed partly by the officer's footsteps, partly by Hongja's accidental shot. The shot, which was used to cover his weak and fear, killed an innocent life and an innocent mind. In the following days, Hongja had at least two times so close to return to himself: the re -meeting with Yongho and the encounter with another pure girl in Yongho's hometown. Nevertheless, he compromised to his current status: out of shame in the first time and attaching to the norms in the second one. The tragedy of his life was settled after him turning into mi-chin-gae as a policeman;the following 97th Asian financial crisis and breaking up with family only expedited his being an alienated man.

Like all the other Korean directors, Lee Chang-dong's narration is delicate. There are too many elements in this movie I couldn't account for fully here. For example, the portrayal of Hongja's wife, a ridiculous role, is strengthened by the scenes of her inappropriate prays. It's unclear whether Lee Chang-dong wants to use the element of religion to symbolize absurdity. I may refer to Secret Sunshine (another Lee Chang-dong's masterwork) for a final conclusion. The last scene about Hongja's tears is also a puzzle for me. Some people read out Hongja's happiness in his sensitive and peaceful days, while I continue to feel his surrendering to the destiny.

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