The classic Korean movie of family dramas is woven into a measured romance in the extraordinary Solace, by the debut director Byeon Seung-wook. It is a story of two creatures crushed by life, who meet but cannot be together. The shop-keeper Hye-ran, in order to make ends meet with her mother and sister, facing the enormous debt run up by her defunct father, sells counterfeit-designer clothes in her shop. The pharmacist In-gu lives with his mother and his mentally handicapped brother, who is gradually worsening, requiring evermore care. They are young but, thrown into the role of family breadwinners, they live a life seemingly deprived of any future.
Solace does not display on the screen, as is the case with many Korean melodramas, bursts of passion accompanied by over-the-top music (like, for example, You Are My Sunshine by Park Jin-pyo). It whispers, it doesn’t roar. Its style is reserved, frugal, the camera views things “from a man’s eye-level”. But observing the minimal relationship (small occurrences, silences, glances) between Hye-ran, In-gu and the retarded brother In-seop, as well as their relations with the other members of these two dysfunctional families and their small world, the film creates moments of humanity that prove themselves to be authentically emotional.
Excellently edited, Solace is a film that splendidly represents the immediate dimension of time. Director Byeon Sung-wook has a genuine eye for details, which he loads with feeling. For example, when In-gu ends up in bed in a sleazy hotel with his ex-girlfriend, we are struck by the mysterious importance of that detail of the girl’s top, which gets caught in her bra hook as she is taking it off - it is these minimal facts that in life (not in the cinema, usually) somehow become catalysts for the alteration of the balance between our inner being and the outside world. In this instance, In-gu gives up and leaves.
The best demonstration of narrative restraint in the film is provided by the music score, which is initially kept to a minimum. This makes it all the more relevant when the music comes in - subtly reprising a song - on Hye-ran who cries as she walks, following a cold encounter with In-gu.
Once the film has established its restrained mood, though, it progressively widens its emotional horizons (once again, the indicator is the music, which is increasingly present). When Hye-ran and In-gu treat themselves to an outing at the lake, and relax chatting on the banks, we are witness to a romantic moment in which (in striking contrast to the elegant but objective long shots) the close ups are subject to a warmer, orangey light. The film gradually develops this opening until its blazingly melodramatic conclusion - in fact, at the end, the objects we see (old photos, a tape recorded by In-gu’s father, who died in Vietnam, the music cassette played in the car) are loaded with meaning, memory-evoking, in classical melodrama fashion. There is a triple conclusion, which elsewhere would appear to be redundant, but here is a three-fold declination of the melodramatic effect: the first finale (with the photo and the father’s tape) is agonizing, while the other two contain a consoling of sorts - solace - which express a sort of resistance to the hardships of life.
The acting is impeccable. In-gu is played by Han Suk-kyu, who has appeared in some of the best Korean films of the last decade (Shiri, Tell Me Something, The President’s Last Bang), and who this year was admirable in the role of the deranged policeman in the not quite accomplished but interesting A Bloody Aria by Won Shin-yeon. Outstanding in the role of Hye-ran (a woman who keeps her desperation locked within, demonstrating impassiveness, but subject to sudden - or secret - explosions) is Kim Ji-soo, an ex-TV star who, in her passage to cinema, was noted for her capacity to act without pretentiousness (This Charming Girl by Lee Yon-ki). Lee Han-wi (In-seop) is an established actor (Christmas In August), who this year sets a record at the FEFJ, appearing in three films: Solace, Park Chul-hee’s No Mercy For The Rude and Jang Jin’s Righteous Ties. An exceptional trio for a film that is, from start to finish, deeply alive and moving.