"Gull" -- Movie Review

 

This week at the New Directors/New Films series, I screened the South Korean drama, “Gull”.  

Synopsis

When an older woman is raped by a coworker, what impact will this have on her life -- both professionally and personally?

Story

In her early 60’s, O-bok is a woman who is looking forward to marrying her eldest daughter -- even though she may not necessarily be that crazy about her fiancé.  For over thirty years, O-bok has worked at a fish market in Seoul; she is basically the breadwinner of the family as her husband can’t support their family of three grown daughters -- the middle one already married with her own family and the youngest merely looking to party.  One night after work, O-bok socializes with the other workers at the market; afterwards, she is sexually assaulted by one of them.

Initially, she tries to keep it a secret from everyone.  Having incurred some serious injuries as a result of the attack, she seeks medical help and is forced to take some time off from work.  Eventually returning to the market, she asks one of the supervisors to help her by getting her attacker to apologize to her -- but when she refuses to tell him the reason why, he is reluctant to be of assistance.  Soon, rumors abound and her fellow market workers hear about what happened and urge O-bok to remain silent as speaking out may have a negative impact on the future of their market.  

Ultimately, O-bok realizes that she must share her story with her family.  While the daughters are understandably horrified, her husband is of no use as he accuses her of being at fault.  O-bok’s middle daughter tries to come to her aid by urging her to file an official police report.  Once everyone else hears about this, it only exacerbates the situation at the market; O-bok winds up getting into a physical confrontation with one of the other women and the police are forced to intervene.  When she sees that she must finally leave her job at the market, O-bok seeks out the man who attacked her -- but will this confrontation resolve the issue?  

Review

The beauty of subtlety and nuance in a film are never better displayed than in “Gull” -- and it may be no coincidence that this is because its director is a woman.  One of the wisest choices Kim Mi-jo makes in telling the story visually is what she doesn’t show on camera -- specifically, the scene where O-bok is raped.  Likely the reason for this is in order to avoid being exploitative, which is smart -- also, being a woman, she probably didn’t want to put her female lead in a rather uncomfortable position to have to shoot a scene where she would be terribly vulnerable.  

One criticism of the movie would have to do with the ending.  It seems a bit ambiguous in the sense that we are apparently supposed to believe that O-bok confronts her attacker and may or may not be able to get some degree of revenge and/or justice.  This ambiguity seems to hurt the film, at least in terms of its conclusion.  Perhaps a more satisfying resolution would have been greater clarity -- regardless of the outcome.  Obtaining justice would have been an upbeat ending, but not getting it might have been downbeat but more realistic.  Since this is a neophyte director, such a transgression might be forgiven.       

Following the screening, there was an interview with the director Kim Mi-jo.  She said that the reason why alcohol is so prominent in her movie is because it is very much part of the culture in South Korea.  It is a way of bonding with others, especially your co-workers.  Her ideas for stories usually start with a theme of human desire.  When she originally conceived of the film, the character was not an older woman -- but then, she considered what would happen if the woman who was assaulted was her mother?