The 15-minute black-and-white segment that opens this film centers around a teenage swimming prodigy named Gwang-soo. Swimming at a pace far beyond any of his competitors, he is South Korea’s greatest hope for medal glory in the upcoming Olympics. But underneath his cocky, self-assured exterior is a volatility and lack of judgement that causes conflict with his coach, and threatens his success.
Sixteen years later, Gwang-soo is contacted by a woman who asks him to coach her elementary-school aged son. The boy, Joon-ho, shows some talent for swimming, but in competitions he continually places 4th. Desperate to improve her son’s performance and open up a path to a swimming scholarship, the mother seeks out Gwang-soo, despite his reputation for being unreasonably harsh to his students.
Jung Ji-woo’s
Fourth Place is a particularly impressive and thought-provoking work that stands out among recent Korean films. It’s a story about parents, teachers and children, and more generally about the pressure placed on young children to succeed. How much pain and misery is worth enduring for a shot at success? And what is the line that separates pressure from abuse?
At first glance,
Fourth Place looks like a film that will advance a certain argument about the issues it raises. The fact that it is produced and financed by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea only reinforces this first impression. But soon after the film starts, it becomes clear that
Fourth Place is more nuanced than a simple issue film. It inspires you to think, but it does not tell you what to think.
The beating heart of the film are its well-rounded characters. There is a world of difference between the young, confident Gwang-soo who looks capable of anything, and the haunted, angry person he becomes later in life. Actor Park Hae-jun makes little effort to make his character likeable, but having seen what he was in his youth changes the way that we look at him.
Yoo Jae-sang portrays Joon-ho as a quiet boy who nonetheless betrays hints of a rich inner life. At no time does he come across as a one-dimensional victim. Finally Lee Hang-na, who plays Joon-ho’s mother, brings a desperate intensity to her performance that suggests how much pressure she herself feels in a society that surely ranks among the world’s most competitive. One senses that she is causing harm to her son, but there is also love mixed in with her actions.
None of the film’s leading actors are recognizable stars, which in this case seems to give the work a greater sense of authenticity. The convincingly ordinary setting and lesser degree of visual ornament is a change of pace for director Jung Ji-woo, who is accustomed to working on mainstream projects with major stars.
But the artistic sensibility that is present in all of his films comes through particularly strong in Fourth Place, giving the work an unusual emotional intensity. He has taken advantage of the low-budget format to make a film that is more serious, but no less gripping, than a mainstream commercial feature.
Various studies indicate that South Korean schoolchildren are among the unhappiest in the world. So in Korea, the effort to make children feel happier is more than just a project for individual families, but a broader social and political issue. Fourth Place demonstrates many of the complexities and challenges involved in addressing this problem, but the very fact that it exists can perhaps serve as a note of encouragement.