Voting on the Shortlist of 15 international features that are vying for the Nomination looks tight…leading the pack will bePoland’s EO, So. Korea’s Decision to Leave, Norway’s War Sailor, and Belgium’s Close and Morocco’s Blue Caftan. My pick for the winner is ‘EO’ or ‘Decision to Leave’ but ‘Close’ will be close in there as well. It's a touch year this year because there are so many good films and some did not even get seen. Below you can read about the films I have seen though I have not yet found the right words to write about Canada's 'Eternal Spring' about China.
My guess is that the shortlist of 15 finalists, to be announced on December 21 (with the final five nominees announced January 24, 2023 and the 95th Academy Awards taking place March 12, 2023) will include ten more from the following: Germany’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Lebanon’s Memory Box, Venezuela’s The Box, Pakistan’s Joyland, Ireland’s The Quiet Girl, Armenia’s Aurora’s Sunrise, Denmark’s Holy Spider, Austria’s Corset, Cambodia’s Return to Seoul, Japan’s Plan 75 and Mexico’s Bardo. Canada’s documentary Eternal Spring (Chángchūn) inMandarin and English, directed by Jason Loftus would be a contender, but in fairness, it should instead be be shortlisted and nominated for the best documentary, perhaps even winning the Oscar.
This is a saga of war but it is not a war story. We do not see the slaughter so vividly depicted in ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. The center stage is not the bonding of men under the duress of war. Instead we see a love story fold, unfold, refold and in its midst, we see the bond between the two men who love the same woman.
Surely this film will make the Oscar Shortlist and I predict the Nomination as well if not the Oscar itself.
The story begins at a party with a loving family Alfred, Cecilia, their three children and his best friend Wally who is a professional sailor. He persuades Alfred to join him as a cook on the merchant ship. When World War II breaks out in 1939, Norway declares itself neutral. On April 9, 1940, German troops invade the country and quickly occupy Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. The Norwegian government rejects the German ultimatum regarding immediate capitulation and it orders its merchant ships to continue delivering goods among the Allies. The sea is the most dangerous place with its unseen torpedos and bombs. Their ships take in survivors from other wreckages including underage youths, both male and female, who must also serve with these sailors. Alfred and Wally struggle for survival in a spiral of violence and death, where at any moment German submarines may attack their valuable vessels. The war sailors have one goal: to survive — and to return home. They are the unarmed civilians on the front lines of a war they never asked to join.
Life at home under the Nazis is also difficult and Alfred’s wife Cecilia, back home in Bergen, has to raise three kids on her own not knowing if her husband is alive or dead. So many years go by as the husband and friend try to survive and the woman with her three children also try to survive.
When British aircrafts attempt to bomb the German submarine bunker in Bergen, they instead hit the primary school at Laksevåg and civilian homes at Nøstet, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. When the news reaches Alfred and Wally in Canada, they wonder if they have anything left at home to return to.
War as the most Destructive Force on Earth is felt and witnessed through a very different lens from the typical war film and packs a greater anti-war whallop than those films where the woman and children are largely ignored as if war were between male forces and women were left to pick up the pieces when it was over. War Sailor spans the years 1939 to 1972 looking at the long-term consequences of what happened during the war years.
A discussion with writer/director Gunnar Vikene and producer Maria Ekerhovd about the making of War Sailor
Gunnar Vikene had been thinking about the true stories of the “war sailors” ever since he first heard about them when he was a young boy. Vikene’s father used to paint houses with a man who seemed to have no fears — Vikene found out this man had survived three torpedo attacks during World War II despite never enlisting in the military.
“There were 30,000 of these Norwegian sailors in the war. And there were similar Canadian merchant fleets, and British, and America,” Vikene explains. “They’re all the unsung heroes of that war — they were caught up in it and they couldn’t decide for themselves if they wanted to enlist. Then after the war, they didn’t fit into the idea of the war hero because they had no uniform and had no guns, no medals or anything.”
Vikene explains he wanted to avoid the usual war film cliches. “Yes, we have action scenes when it’s necessary for the story, but it comes down to the human factor. It’s not about the explosion, it’s about the consequences of the explosion.”
He discovered the true story of the real Alfred, Wally and Cecilia back in the early 1990s “and I never forgot it.” He researched their stories and similar stories of the time period and the legacy of war for decades later. Vikene doesn’t call this film a biography because it is a fictionalized version of their lives — “Alfred is not here anymore to explain anything, so I consider these fictional versions of the characters. But they are based on real people,” he says. “What I can say is that every war-related incident in the film actually happened. I read everything that I have come across.”
Another devastating true story in the film is when British aircrafts trying to bomb the German submarine bunkers in Bergen accidentally bomb the primary school at Laksevåg and civilian homes at Nøstet, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. Vikene grew up knowing the story because one of his mother’s second cousins was killed that day, at only age 8, and another of her cousins survived.
What finally inspired him to make the film was a talk a few years ago with his then-12-year-old daughter, looking at images of a wounded child in Syria. He recalls, “My daughter said, ‘I’m so glad we don’t live in a country where we experience that.’ And I pointed out the window and said, ‘relatives of your grandmother were killed right over there.’ And my daughter didn’t know. It was the idea that we need to remind ourselves that we have been through it.”
The story then burst out of him onto the page. “I had been thinking about the story for so long that when I tried to just sit down and get the first draft of the script out, I finished it in a month.”
He dreamed of telling this story for decades “but I never thought I was going to be in a position where I was actually able to make it.” His longtime collaboration with Maria Ekerhovd at Mer Film made it possible, working together on their third feature (after their past collaborations Here is Harloldand Vegas).
Producer Maria Ekerhovd
At first, Ekerhovd wasn’t keen on any story related to World War II. “I gave her the script, and told her that it takes place during the war but also after the war. She called me after she read the script and said, ‘This isn’t really a war movie, so I’d love to produce it.’”
Ekerhovd knew the production would be her biggest ever. “It’s a big production and I never actually had the ambition that I would do that kind of big film, that was never a goal I had. But Gunnar came to me in 2016 with the script, and he’d already been thinking of this story for 20 years.”
She was fascinated by this story which hadn’t been told in film before: “Gunnar told me that during the Second World War, Norway had the fifth-biggest merchant fleet in the world. When the war started, the Norwegian government decided that all these normal Norwegian sailors had to sail throughout the war, and they didn’t have a choice. These ships had such an important job to get the supplies to the Allies. Their contribution to the war was never recognized. They were traumatized. The government never even paid them for the job they did during the war until the 1970s. This is a big scandal and it hasn’t been dealt with. This isn’t the kind of black-and-white story we usually see on the big screen. There is more complexity.”
Vikene adds, “All my films before were small arthouse movies, and I knew this would take more money and more resources, and Maria made it happen, she got all the right partners on board quickly.”
Ekerhovd put together the largest budget ever for Norwegian production, at 11m Euros, bringing on co-producers Rohfilm Factory, Studio Hamburg and Falkun Films.
She was excited to continue their 15-year-collaboration in new ways. The producer says, “I think it’s super important to really get to know the people you work with, in order to really know the strengths and weaknesses of each other and be open and honest and trust the process. It’s not going to be easy all the time, and we will have our ups and downs, but we can be together in all of those circumstances.”
Vikene is always impressed that Ekerhovd is brilliant both on the creative and the logistical sides of producing: “She’s a great reader and such a good analyst. And she can be compassionate about a project’s issues. She also doesn’t take no for an answer!”
Assembling the perfect cast
A trio of established Norwegian talents play the leads — Kristoffer Joner (The Wave) plays family man Alfred; Pal Sverre Hagen (Kon-Tiki) is his old friend Wally; and Ine Marie Wilmann (Sonia: The White Swan) plays Alfred’s wife Cecilia.
Vikene had made his first feature, 2002’s Falling Sky, with Joner and they have become good friends over the years. “He’s a fantastic actor and human being and I had written the script with him in mind, I was so lucky he said yes,” Vikene says.
Despite being two of the most acclaimed contemporary actors in Norway, Joner and Hagen had never met before. “It’s strange that in little Norway they hadn’t met each other. But after two minutes in the room together, I just felt that they really respected and liked each other. They became great friends during the shoot and I think you see that on screen,” the director says.
He had also worked with Wilmann before, and had a special challenge for her in this role of the wife left home in Bergen. He remembers, “I told her, ‘The trick this time was that you have to learn the local dialect.’ This is really difficult and very different from her own. I told her, ‘You have to learn it — not only learning the lines, you have to speak fluidly so we can improvise.’ And she spent a year learning it and was brilliant.”
“The process of working with the actors was very nice,” Vikene continues. “I told the actors that you need to own your characters. Because this is something that I need you to take responsibility for. And they did so in such a fantastic way.”
He also tried not to rehearse each scene too much. “We talked about the characters and scenes a lot but I do very few rehearsals. I was afraid if we rehearsed it too much they were going to drain it emotionally.”
An epic production
The film was originally scheduled to shoot in 2020 but had to pause for a year due to the pandemic. They eventually shot it during March to October 2021, in Norway, Malta and Germany, with just over 60 shooting days.
They worked with a mostly Maltese crew in Malta and again with German crews in Germany, and Vikene praises them as “great professionals,” but he was still glad to get back to the Norwegian part of the shoot “working with a lot of people I’ve worked with before, with so many people pitching in because my film family is here.”
The scale of the project was a step up for Ekerhovd. “It was super exciting…it was a new challenge that it was such a big film, you can’t just wing it. It was fun because it was learning new skills and working with new partners and seeing how that side of the business works.”
Because Vikene has also worked in big budget TV like Occupied, he found working a bigger-budget film wasn’t a shock to the system. “The process is basically the same thing as with a lower-budget film, it just involves a lot more people.”
One key collaborator was acclaimed DoP Sturla Brandth. “Sturla is one of the best cinematographers on the planet and he’s also such a great human being — that was one of the most inspiring collaborations I’ve had in my career,” the director says.
They didn’t use typical war films for visual inspiration, instead watching documentary footage from the era or even more recent documentary films like The White Helmets.
“We wanted that documentary feel when it comes to closeness to the character,” Vikene adds. The team shot digitally — and Vikene praises colourist William Kjarval for giving it “a filmic look” in the grading process.
The big set pieces were very carefully planned. “We prepared really well for all the technical sequences, so that was storyboarded in detail in advance,” Vikene explains.
And as much as possible was shot in camera, not added in post later. He adds, “I see so many films where you have 10 seconds of a CGI ship in an establishing shot. We weren’t interested in that. We only wanted the CGI to enhance what we already shot, to make the story better.”
Scenes of the ships and raft on the ocean are actually shot in the sea, not in a water tank. They thought the authenticity was worth going the extra mile. As Vikene recalls, “Sturla thought we would be able to detect the distinction where the real water ends, and maybe it would feel not quite right. The real thing is always better.”
They also didn’t just use spectacle for spectacle’s sake. “The explosions and actions are there because they have real consequences for human beings. There are a lot of very romantic films made about war and the great heroes, and we tried to stay away from that. It was a film about survival to make it home to your loved ones, not about heroism in action. I hope you can see on screen the fear and the panic in the those war scenes.”
Ekerhovd adds, “I think what Gunnar has achieved with the film is to actually give us a feeling of how it was for them to be out on the boats and also how it really played out for the families at home.”
Vikene also praises the authentic work across so many members of the crew — such as by costume designer Stefanie Bieker (“she gave it a texture that feels really believable and not like a typical costume drama”; makeup designer Jens Bartram and his team (“they nailed it for this documentary feel we were going for”) production designer Tamo Kunz. The director adds that editors Peter Brandt and Anders Albjerg Kristiansen “were so enthusiastic and brave during the process, and challenged me and the material in a great and constructive way.”
Honoring the legacy of the war sailors
Vikene hopes this film will personally touch people who still live with the legacy of the war sailors. “People remember being children and not knowing if their beloved father is coming home. I’ve spoken to so many children of those kinds of families. That’s an important part of the story. It is so much about what happens with families after the war.”
He felt the importance of the story today when the team were shooting in his hometown of Bergen. “We were shooting in places that were so close to the school that was bombed, and there are so many people in Bergen who had families impacted by that, so that felt very special. People stopped to tell us their stories. It felt so close in a way that was inspiring, we were dealing with real people’s stories and that’s a big responsibility.”
The cast and crew were away from their families for four and a half months while making the film, and while that’s not as extreme as the story of the sailors — Vikene wanted the cast and crew to draw on that feeling. He told them, “Take this emotion that you come home to your children and they have grown five centimeters since last time you saw them. And then multiply that emotion by a million. That’s how they felt.”
Sadly, this kind of war story still feels relevant today. “This story about the civilians, the working-class perspective hasn’t been told,” Vikene says. “90% of people dying in war today are civilians. They aren’t wearing uniforms. You just have to look at Ukraine.”
He continues, “I haven’t lived through war. If you live long enough, you have things in your life that you cannot fix for ourselves. Things that we can’t control and has sent our life in a different direction. I hope everyone can relate to that feeling. I hope we can all relate to having a father that you don’t know if you will ever see again, or relate to being a wife who doesn’t know if her husband is alive when she wakes up in the morning. I think on a basic human level, people can relate to that. I hope the audience can identify with the characters, there is something universal about the feelings they have towards each other.”
THE CREW
GUNNAR VIKENE — THE DIRECTOR
Gunnar Vikene directed his first feature film, Falling Sky (Himmelfall) in 2002. His following feature films — Trigger(2007), Vegas (2009), and Here is Harold (2014) — have all received both critical acclaim and a number of international prizes.
In 2017 he directed the TV-series Borderline, which earned him a best director-prize at Gullruten (Norwegian Emmys). He also directed several episodes of the acclaimed show Occupied (2020) and was in 2022 again nominated for a best director-prize for his work in the TV-series Pørni (2021).
Gunnar lives in Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. Before starting to work with films he was a submarine officer for several years.
STURLA BRANDTH GRØVLEN — DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Sturla Brandth Grøvlen is a Norwegian cinematographer based in Denmark. He won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for his work on Victoria (2015) and has since worked on films such as Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents, Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy and Josephine Decker’s Shirley.
VOLKER BERTELMANN — COMPOSER
Volker Bertelmann is a German composer. He won an Oscar for his work on Lion (2016), together with Dustin O’Halloran. He has composed scores for such films as Ammonite (2020), The Old Guard (2020) and All Quiet On The Western Front (2022).
THE MAIN CAST
KRISTOFFER JONER — ALFRED
Kristoffer Joner has starred in Norwegian and International films as The Wave, The Quake, Mission: Impossible — Fallout and The Revenant. He has won the Norwegian Film Award Amanda for Best Male Actor three times and starred in Gunnar Vikene’s first feature film Falling Sky in 2002.
INE MARIE WILMANN — CECILIA
Ine Marie Wilmann has starred in Norwegian films and TV-series as Sonja: The White Swan (Sundance 2018), Homesick (Sundance 2015), Exit (2021-) and Furia (2021-). She has won the Amanda Award for Best Female Lead and the Norwegian Emmy for her work in the TV-series The Third Eye, directed by Gunnar Vikene.
PÅL SVERRE HAGEN — SIGBJØRN
Pål Sverre Hagen has starred in Norwegian films such as Kon-Tiki, Troubled Water, Amundsen and Out Stealing Horses. He has won the Amanda Award for Best Actor two times — most recently for his performance in The Middle Man(Toronto, 2021).
INTERNATIONAL SALES AGENT Beta Films has licensed the film to
Sure to be on the top of many people’s list as one of the best films of the year (including my own along with ‘EO’), at the very least it should be nominated for for best international feature Oscar. This melodrama keeps you in the tense suspense of ‘Double Indemnity’, ‘The Postman Rings Twice’ or ‘Gaslight’.
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei). As he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire. By falling in love with her, he commits worst crime he could commit as a police officer.
writer Jeong Seo-kyeong
Decision to Leave is co-written by Jeong Seo-kyeong with the director Park Chan-wook. It is shot in and around Busan. The romantic thriller premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being released in select U.S. theaters by MUBI.
During the Hammer Museum- MOMA Contender Series, the screenwriter Jeong Seo-kyeong spoke about her many collaboration with Park Chan-took.You can watch the 32 minute conversation here with film critic Katie Walsh. Or read below for the written version, slightly edited and abridged.
Aside from the original mustic there is the recurring fourth movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony thoughout the film. When asked her about the use of music this is what she answered.
When we were writing the script, the Mahler’s Fifth was actually the first score that we thought of. I needed a song that goes with someone in that lone space high up on the mountain, a music that speaks to how he feels separated from the rest of the world. That’s why I chose two songs by Mahler. And when Director Park saw the first draft, he called me up and he said, “Oh, it’s all good, but why did you have to use Mahler? Did you not watch Death in Venice? That song was perfectly used there already, so why would we have to use it again?”
But I never saw Death in Venice.
So he said, “Okay, I’ll try to work it out on my own.” And I think he did try his best to find something else, but he had to return to Mahler.
Have you seen Tar? They also use Mahler. No.
She conducts Mahler’s Fifth in Tar. So it’s a theme this year.
To return to her writing, Katie Walsh and Jeong Seo-kyeong’s conversation is below.
You started working with Director Park in 2005 with Lady Vengeance. So I’m so curious how you two connected and started working together on that film.
There was a short film competition and he was a jury member and he selected the film. And that’s how we got to know each other. From what I remember, the script of the short film was very weird and I think that’s exactly what he liked about it. So he said, I’ve got this idea. I’m working on this this vengeance trilogy and I want your sensibility on this.
At that point, just when we were about to start working together, he had just won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes [for Oldboy] and he became a worldwide director.
I thought to myself, wow, I’m going to be working with such a worldwide famous director. I was very stunned by that and he was busy at the time, so I had to start on the screenplay on my own at first.
He was on his promotional tour for the film and I was working on the first draft of the screenplay by myself. And from what I remember, it was a pathetic first draft.
But he was not taken aback by the draft at all. And instead he calmly said, “okay, let’s start revising it together”.
In Korea, there’s a method of working in which we share one hotel room and we stay there and work together for days. So the crew members were sitting around this large table in this hotel room. There are two monitors, two keyboards and one hard drive. And we were working together. When one person is writing, the other person can see it on the screen. Next to that table was a long couch where all the other crew members were sitting. It almost felt like writing that screenplay was a game of table tennis.
So he writes and then I write. I would see something that I ddin’t like and I would revise it. He would see something he didn’t like and he would revise it. So we would go back and forth like that. Instead of sharing conversations by mouth, we were seeing what was happening on the screen and that’s how we talked about the story.
At that time I was a first time writer and I was working on my first screenplay. So I really had to give it all my best to catch up with him. It really was an unfair game, if I may say. Whenever we would ask people which they liked better, they would always be on the director’s side.
But 20 years later, today, the crew member actually take my side more now.
So you still work like this?
No. Oh. After Thirst, I had my first child. And while we were working on Stoker I had my second child close. That’s why I couldn’t make a lot of time. And that’s why we can’t spend that much time together anymore.
So now I write the first draft of the screenplay and we revise it for three or four days or up to a week. Then he writes the final draft after a discussion with the crew members and the actors and myself.
Wow. That’s remarkable. I was going to ask how you guys work together, what you’re working process was like. So I’m I’m thrilled that it just came up naturally. And that is such a trial by fire. I mean, I’m sure that was like film school being in that hotel room, having to write against Park Chan-wook in a competitive manner.
I actually majored in screenwriting at school, but after graduation, I realized I actually don’t know anything about screenwriting. Like, really, like, genuinely. I was learning screenwriting from director Park Film School and I’m still learning today.
Park Chan-wook
And I’m sure director Park feels the same way.
Yeah. Yeah. So Decision to Leave is an original script.
You’ve worked on some adaptations before, but what was the spark of idea for this screenplay?
Director Park, while working on Little Drummer Girl in London, sent me an email. He suggested, “What about a story about a detective? And in his area, there are two husbands who are murdered by his wife.”
His idea at the time actually reminded me a lot of Thirst… a murder caused by adultery.
I told him, “I don’t think we can work on this one. First of all, neither of us can write a melodrama. But even more, I really can’t write a story about adultery.”
But Director Park answered, “What do you mean? I’m great at writing this stuff.”
I told him no. I don’t think we can work like this. So we had an argument about that, actually. During that argument, I realized I was already developing the characters for this story. And I found myself with a finished synopsis for the film. That’s how the film came to be.
It sounds like there’s some creative energy in the conflict or in the argument. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you’re sort of working against each other and then it’s generating ideas for you.
For this film and it’s so for most of the films that we work together on, I relate a lot to the female characters and director Park tends to relate to the male characters. And the reason I didn’t want to work on a melodrama is because I had a terrible memory from Thirst. I did not like the ending of Thirst. Why did the female character have to die when she did not want to. It would have been nice if she lived on as a vampire. So when the film was over I think I felt just like Tae-ju. She’s like, “I don’t want to die but since I love him, I guess there’s no other choice”. So I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t want it to be that way, but I guess I have no other choice.”
For Decision to Leave, I do like the ending but I did have to ask the question why the female character had to die. I had a lot of frustrations regarding that. Why Seo-rae seem to like Hae-jun more than he likes her. Why does Hae-jun seem like he can’t give up on his wife or Seo-rae.
Seo-rae says, “The moment you said you loved me, your love is over. The moment your love ends, my love begins.”
And Seo-rae has to give up give up her whole life for Hae-jun. But Hae-jun only gives up on his self-esteem.
But watching the finished film, I was struck with a realization that for some people, giving up on one’s self-esteem is the same as giving up one’s life.
There was some conflict while we were writing the film, but watching the finished film, I think I understood and connected with the overall ending.
I’m also curious about the casting of Tang Wei, who’s a Chinese actress, obviously living in Korea. And did you write the character of Seo-rae for Tang Wei or was it? Did you change that character to be Chinese once you knew she was going to be in the film?
I told director Park I didn’t want to write a melodrama because I was not confident I would do a good job. One exception was, that if the female character were played by Tang Wei, then I would write it. Because I was in love with Tang Wei.
That’s a good answer. Makes sense. I understand.
And that’s why the female character turned out to- turned out to be a Chinese person.
Well, she’s fabulous in the film. So we thank you for your instincts, for being in love with her.
One of the things I love about this film is the use of technology. It feels so honest as to how we use technology in our everyday lives, how we’re always texting and the way the characters communicate through technology. But also it becomes part of the mystery and how he solves the mystery and then also how he’s sort of driven mad at the end. So when you’re writing with director Park, how are you incorporating how the characters are using technology into the writing process? He makes it so cinematic, but I know that you must be putting that into the script as well.
If you consider authors like Agatha Christie at the time when she was writing her crime novel and compare them to those who are writing crime novels today, we have so much technology. Phones are always filming and are recording evidence. There’s not a lot that we can work with because anyone can take photos and have voice recordings and there are always CCTV cameras everywhere.
So I realized it’s impossible to have that romanticist classical crime story. Instead we must actively incorporate the use of modern technology. When Director Park first received a draft of the script. He asked me, “Why are there so many scenes with cell phones? I’ve never seen so many cell phones in a movie except in Searching.”
Director Park initially did not want to film any scenes with cell phones. But later he gave up on giving up on those cell phone scenes and instead filmed from the point of view of a cell phone. That is actually a very innovative, creative take on that. But I do feel that people took that in very well because we often feel that phones are looking at us.
As for me as a writer, the use of Apple Watches actually gave me a lot of creative freedom because it’s difficult to have scenes to incorporate the protagonist in a voiceover out of nowhere. But with the Apple Watch and the recording, it made that so much easier.
You have worked across so many genres with Director Park, vampire, vengeance, melodrama. The Handmaiden is a historical drama, romance. It’s an adaptation. Do you think there’s a consistent theme or tone that you and Director Park always come back to that spans your body of work?
The thing is, Director Park and I actually don’t agree on the themes most of the time. For instance, for Lady Vengeance, the theme was vengeance. But I don’t quite understand why people are so obsessed with vengeance.
So I actually called my friend and asked, “Why do people have to take revenge on each other instead of striving for peace?”
As for Thirst, the theme was guilt or salvation. But the thing is, I don’t feel a lot of guilt in my life. As long as I don’t do anything bad, there is no need for guit or salvation. That’s what I think.
If I were a vampire, I would think to myself, “Oh, this is how the mankind is going to evolve. So I should find a new method of life”.
So in those ways I don’t think the themes quite worked with me, but as we were working together, I didn’t realize we were working toward one common theme. I think it has to do with respect or the dignity of mankind.
In all of these different genres, the protagonists tend to be thrown into very extreme situations. And yet even in these extreme situations, these protagonists try not to lose their sense of dignity. I think when Hae-jun was talking about how Seo-rae had such upright posture, I think it really spoke to her sense of dignity.
That is a common theme throughout films like I’m a Cyborg But That’s Okayor The Handmaiden.
I was wondering, did you ever come up with that alternative finale or like, did you suggest an alternative finale?
The ending is actually something that makes logical sense. This is a story that begins very high up and then ends very low. We start on the mountain and close on the ocean. So conclusively it makes logical sense that it would end up with someone digging a hole.
I actually tend to think that an ending in which a woman dies for love is quite unnatural. But if a man dies, that’s a little more natural. But despite those personal frustrations, I cannot think of any other ending that would work better.
Director Park seems to write a lot of stories featuring female protagonists. What are the difficulties you face when you’re writing about a female protagonist while you’re working with a male director?
It is very easy. I’ve actually written a story in which it only features male protagonists. It’s called Believer. That story is filled with male characters. And I had such a hard time, I thought I was going to die.
I think one of the most difficult parts of being a writer is if a female writer is trying to write a good male character, and when a male writer is trying to write a good female character.
But despite all those difficulties, Director Park actually portrays the female characters very well. He writes characters in such a way that they don’t have to sacrifice their femininity in order to walk their path of life.
Over 20 years of working together, our collaboration has evolved so much that it’s actually difficult to tell which line is written by me and which line is written by Director Park.
In the movie The Handmaiden, one of the most feminine looking lines, was actually written by Director Park. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that line out loud.
It’s a line by the character Sook-hee and she says, “If I could have milk from my breasts, I wish I could feed you, my lady.”
Can you imagine that?
Well, his female characters are so strong, I’m sure that is your influence, of course, in your writing, but also, in just the working relationship that he has with you.
I wish I could also have developed writing better male characters, but I think I’m a little behind if we have to make a comparison.
Keep writing women, we like it.
I wanted to ask about Seo-Rae’s mother-daughter relationship because I felt like that was such a pivotal moment in the story.
The relationship between Seo-rae and her mother was actually described in more lengthy terms. Because I think the entire story started the moment Seo-rae killed her mother. There is nothing more serious. She doesn’t commit a more serious crime than killing the mother that she loves so much.
So I think in some ways, Seo-rae has already died the moment she had to go through that.
I think she has taken a journey with her mother and her grandfather to the mountain that her mother said belonged to her, and then she starts her journey down. After she has placed the ashes of her mother and her grandfather at that mountain, she starts her own journey towards death down from the mountain. Because I think every animal, including mankind, wants to find death where they were born.
So that is why Seo-rae believed that her mother wanted to be buried in the mountains and Seo-rae goes towards the ocean because she belongs to the ocean.
I think the only way she might have found salvation from her ordeal could have been to leave and go somewhere else with Hae-jun, but that didn’t happen, so inevitably she had to go to the ocean.
And all of that began with the death of Seo-rae’s mother.
Well, thank you all so much for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jiwon. Thank you, Chung Seo-kyung. And thank you for watching this film and talking to us about it.
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