Sopyonje: A Cantora Cega

This is one of the best films about the Blues that I have ever seen. I defy you to find a member of the Hoary Tarnation of Blues, Delta, Mississippi, USA, that wouldn't spit, squint up at you and say, "Dang! That is the Blues!" Verdad! And while I'm exclaiming away, I swear to you that as I sat in our little local art house theater the audience just let the tears stream when they must with complete abandon. With no shame. Now there is some eastern magic.

The film begins in an interesting way. The style is clearly modern and places the story distant from a medieval or fantasy era. The young actor's (Kyu-chul Kim) style however hearkens to the older traditions in Korean Theater. And soon his search fades into the story of his emotional roots. The film doesn't make an obvious judgment about the 'life' of these three people or their domination by their father-mentor. Yet the film challenges you to decide if his assumption to rule these growing children is culturally acceptable or extraordinary even in their world at large.

There is a scene in a pension when the song master (Myung-gon Kim) becomes very drunk and garrulous. It is at once hilarious, tense and pathetic. Another, when the itinerants are walking with back packs in the middle of nowhere and begin a spontaneous dancing walk as they go along their way. These are glowing moments in cinema. The productions values are good and keep you placed always on the edge of the wild.

And then the music! This is the blues. Truly, I can say no more.

I got the chance to see Seopyeonje in a Korean class in school. Our Korean professor was a bit excited to let us watch this film. So we sat in the speech laboratory and devoted our attention to the projection screen at the front.

I have to admit, after the first 30 minutes or so of watching this movie, I expected no more development in the plot, thinking that all the flatness of the story will endure until the end. I was bit by bit becoming impatient of watching it, annoyed by the (for me) dreary atmosphere of the 50s and rustic setting, not to mention the ear-splitting and irritating singing of the lead characters. I am also neither a fan of Asian flicks or Asian TV "novelas" and have no great tolerance of hearing characters speak languages alien to me, even if there were English subtitles flashing at the bottom of the screen. So I had to prolong my patience.

But lucky to be seated on a chair in the front row, I had my attention not taken away from the movie which if otherwise I might have given up watching and fallen asleep because of drastic tedium. Then I began to realize, a movie like Seopyeonje is not one of the typical contemporary flicks, hyped and high-budgeted, only to deliver shallow entertainment to the audience. It then registered with me that I was becoming critical of the film too early. So I gave myself another chance and continued watching, this time with a different perspective. Thus my reflections go.

Seopyeonje is not easy to watch without the watcher's religious attention. It is slow-paced and languorous at times, and I am convinced it is designed this way to convey exactly and completely its meaning. This meaning is the splendor of the arts, culture and tradition, inherent not only of Korea but of every nation. This movie would like us to appreciate and recognize the value of traditions and heritage slowly fading away while modernization advances and continues to overrun this world.

The movie talks of pain, longing, passion and fortitude without much talking and melodrama. The actors' portrayals of their characters are unaffected and what are typical of real life. Their gestures, singing and expressions fit so perfectly that there needed to be not anything more to communicate what they needed to communicate. The singing is by far the key element of the film, being a musical and one centered on Pansori, a traditional Korean folk music. I confess I did not bear the tones and screams of the Pansori reciters at first but my perception gradually changed as the movie progressed.

The culmination of Pansori art, as explained in the movie, is attained by overcoming grief and suffering. I can't help but be sympathetic about Songhwa (the female lead character) and her plight, but as she reached the peak of her art, my sympathy changed into admiration and the once annoying sound of Pansori transformed into a sublime and haunting melody to my ears.

Seopyeonje is one of the finest cinema I have seen. It is characteristically sad and somber but all at once beautiful, emotional and moving. It certainly left an indelible mark in me. I recommend it to those who love art, culture and traditions and bored of mainstream Hollywood movies and to those who simply want to stray from convention.

The story, not bad in itself, is not the main point. The music is. The main characters - a father and his daughter and son - are all folk music performers, and the musical numbers, dispersed throughout the film, make up an integral part of the film. It is not easily accessible for those used to the ordinary Hollywood stuff, but well worth the time if the musical genre presented - pansori - a form of Korean folk music, and actually the main character of the picture - appeals to you. Those who don't like the music will probably be very bored and should not waste their time on this. I loved it, but I know people who would fall asleep fast if they tried to see this.

Pansori - the traditional Korean musical storytelling, which is performed by a singer and a drummer, is the key component in this movie. If I were to describe it, I'd compare it heart that fuels this movie and makes it function - it encompasses the Korean culture during the period when Japanese and Western influences are taking over the Korean peninsula.

This movie isn't a musical but music is everywhere around the three main characters and music, or rather - the continuation of this traditional kind of music - is the main motivator for everything. For one, it's the task to save it; for the second, it's the task to please her father; and for the third - it's the task to convince them that Pansori isn't profitable anymore. Each of them had different views on the music and the music filled them up in a different way, creating this unorthodox father-pupil family tandem. Even though their trio broke up and broke them up emotionally, the chain of events concluded with one of the most powerful musical exhibitions in the cinema I've ever seen. The raw emotional display, the sadness mixed with guilt, pity, and remorse, the closure that is both making the audience cry and making the audience feel immense joy - everything that comes into making this movie has an effect that sincerely moves people. At the very least, it moved me more than anything else recently and I couldn't be happier.

One of the very best films to come out of South Korea. SOPYONJE tells the tale of pansori singers trying to survive in a world that no longer cares about them. The plight of the pansori singers is an allegory for traditional South Korea, a country being overrun by modernization and the Western world in the aftermath of World War II.

The film's soundtrack alone is worth watching. I've never heard such haunting and beautiful singing in my life. Truly, a masterpiece that deserves to be remembered.

10 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this film and reviews of other foreign movies)