Name : The way home [ 2002/South Korea/ Drama ]
Direc­tor: Lee Jehong
Music : Kim
Actors : Doesn’t look like they are actors :)

We, in tamil films, can’t digest a sin­gle scene where the word love doesn’t pitch in. We, in fact, changed the dic­tio­nary mean­ing of love — we under­stand it can be used only in the most dra­matic sen­tence ‘I love you’ :). There are a hand­ful of movies for other sort of rela­tion­ships. Grand­par­ents, Friends, Master-student [ “my tutor” illeenga :) ]. Also, we don’t have good cin­ema for chil­dren. I still don’t under­stand why 3D films are stopped being pro­duced. [ I saw MDKut­tichathaan in Ega theatre :) ].

We do have rare films deals about grand­moth­ers [ poove poo­c­hoo­dava — U know PC Sri­ram was the cam­era­man for that film ]

This Korean movie deals with the sum­mer hol­i­days of a 10yrs old city grown kid, spend­ing time with his grand­mother in a remote vil­lage. The char­ac­ters are very nat­ural and their char­ac­ter biog­ra­phy is uncom­pli­cated. But the hap­pen­ings make the story close to us and interesting.

Plot :

It’s about a 10 yrs boy [ San ] who comes from he city (Seoul) to a remote hill town in South Korea. San and his mother reaches a remote vil­lage to spend his sum­mer with his grand­mother [ 78 yrs, mute but not deaf ] and his mother leaves. San got packed junk foods and video games. He sel­dom respects the grand­mother and of course, crit­i­cizes her as ‘retard’. He gets 2 friends and they don’t want to play with San, for his mis­chie­vous nature.

San’s video game player runs out of the bat­tery and he roams to get bat­ter­ies. He asks his grandma for KFC and grandma some­how under­stands that he is ask­ing for chicken. She man­ages to buy a live hen on a rainy day and cooks that in coun­try style [ plain — boiled ]. He doesn’t accept it as KFC and of course grandma doesn’t under­stand what he exactly asks for.

   
Out of all the con­flicts, the only thing he helps his grandma is to thread the nee­dle. One day she takes him to the mar­ket, buys noo­dles and new shoes. On the way back, he cheats his grandma and comes back alone in the bus, leav­ing grandma with­out a nickle. She walks all the way back home with­out frustration.

Grandma’s uncon­di­tional love slowly makes some change in the boy. End of the sum­mer, he devel­ops affec­tion towards his grandma and teaches her sim­ple greet­ings with cards. His mother comes and takes him back to Seoul, He departs with tears. Grandma is back to her sim­ple life with greet­ing cards from her grandson.

View :

Of the few char­ac­ters, I liked the grandma very much. What­ever the kid does, she never gets irri­tated [ just like any other grandma ]. With what­ever avail­able with her, she leads a peace­ful life and on top she helps oth­ers. The only thing she depends on the boy is to run thread through a nee­dle because of her low eye­sight and that she waits patiently.

The boy expresses his unwill­ing­ness very nat­u­rally. The film doesn’t end too dra­mat­i­cally mak­ing the boy cry­ing for his mis­takes .. ha.. !

The shot where he eats chicken in the night is showed in the shadow form on wall [ Thiruttu thanam — Remem­ber Alai­payuthe mar­riage is shown in silhouette :) ]

I liked a touch­ing dia­log — a friend of the old lady ends their con­ver­sa­tion like this.“Come by again before one of us dies.”

The film hardly has 5–7 char­ac­ters and very less dialogues.

Con­clu­sion :

The movie is ded­i­cated to grand­moth­ers in the world — what an apt thing to do. This is not a stun­ning or com­pli­cated movie but sim­ple n neat one.

An old joke

1 : ப‌ர‌வாயில்லையே‌.. ம‌க‌ளிர் ம‌ட்டும் மாதிரி ப‌ல்ல‌வ‌ன்‍ல‌ “ஆயாவுக்காக‌”னு கூட‌ ப‌ஸ் விட்டுருக்காங்க‌ளே !

2 : யோவ் ! ஒழுங்கா ப‌டி.. அது “ஆயாவுக்காக‌” இல்லை.. ஆய்வுக்காக‌. !!

Related Posts B

1. Kiku­jiro — A touch­ing travel.