When South
Korean director Bong Joon Ho won an Oscar for Best Directing in 2019, he quotes
Martin Scorsese words "The most personal story is the most
creative". When I moved to New Zealand when I was 8, I always felt
like I was living on an island, on my own. There were a lot of kids in my school
who were from the Philippines, China and Samoa etc, but I never saw a kid who's
from South Korea like me. Additionally, both of my parents were preoccupied
with trying to adapt to this country. Because of all this, I started to watch a
lot of TV and movies at the cinema. Every Saturday morning, I used to watch cartoons
and around 7:30 PM, channel two would always play a family film. From these
media I observed when I was young, none of these movies or animated series had
characters that I could relate to; Even when the characters were Asian or an
immigrant. When I was around 15, I’d watch Korean movies and still I couldn’t
relate to any of their characters either because I’m not familiar with that
background. Living without any media that represented my identity and culture
always made me feel like I was isolated on an island by myself.
This issue of
trying to identify myself in media lasted until 2019, when I watched The
Farewell with my brother at the New Zealand International Film Festival. The
Farewell was a story covering a Chinese family, where they discover that
their grandmother only has a short time to live. Knowing this, they decide to
keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding in China as a guise to gather the
family so that they can see her before she passes. From this film, I related
most with the protagonist Billi; I empathised with her as I’ve experienced the
feeling of not knowing where my family is going and the anxiety of never seeing
them again; An experience of seeing fear in my parent’s eyes; An experience of
coming back to South Korea and finally seeing my family again after 11 years;
An experience of starting a new life as I travelled towards New Zealand as a
child.
Watching a
movie that I could relate to was such a new experience for me. It made me
realise that many people have had a similar experience to mine. I wished that I
had saw a movie or TV show based on the director’s (or writers) personal
experiences like this when I was younger. The American film studio ‘A24,’
produces many great indie films like The Farewell, Moonlight (2016),
Lady Bird (2017), The Florida Project (2017), Mid 90s
(2018) and many more. I believe their movies are very interesting because that
small studio allows directors to share their personal stories. This year A24
released a movie called Minari. It covers the story about a Korean
family that moves to Arkansas to start a farm in the 1980s. I can’t wait to
watch this movie this year but there’s no cinema showing it at the moment, so I
guess I’ll settle with Tenet (2020) instead.
It is interesting as you are not the first person to mention that there is a lack or representation of Asian characters on screen particularly, a lack of characters in which they can identify with. Perhaps studios need to consider funding films in which Asian youth can identify with.
ReplyDeleteKia Ora e kare. Thank you for sharing your story. I understand how you feel to an extent. Finding a space of familiarity is difficult when you feel like you're stuck between two worlds; geographically being separated from your heritage and therefore feeling inadequate to your roots' culture, identity and language - then feeling culturally excluded in the place that you call home now. I look forward to the day where I can see someone referencing your movie as a piece of media that made them feel less alone like you did with 'The Farewell.'
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ReplyDeleteI lived in a different country for 3 months barely able to speak the language, feeling out of place and just being lonely asf. It must be so difficult to feel something similar in a place that's home. Also I really agree that a24 produces great stories. I'm excited to watch Minari too now :)
ReplyDeleteI totally understand the feeling of not being able to relate to characters in films because I didn’t have knowledge about the background/cultural references. Sometimes it’s hard for me to get the jokes in some films just because I’m not familiar with the culture. While Asians are still underrepresented and misrepresented in Western media, I think it’s a good idea to watch Asian films as they help to understand and appreciate our culture. One of the things I constantly do to stay connected with my culture and identity is to go to the cinema to watch Asian films with my Asian friends :)
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