We often hear a lot of noise around 'Humans getting materialistic, losing values and emotions, becoming apathetic towards others, becoming selfish to the core' but simple and intuitive elaboration of this isn't often done. Well, watch this movie, and you will realize it effectively.
The background score is good but seems off at some places e.g. During some melancholic scene like the closing one, happy/merry melody is used.
Scenes that made an impact (yes, that's the word!):
- The first nasty moments of the movie are when the disturbed mother brings her spoilt and inconsiderate brat to the village. She shamelessly puts responsibility of her brat on her fragile and old mother whom she hasn't seen or written to in 15 years since she ran away from the house. The brat doesn't mind hitting his own mother or grandmother. She blankly tells that the brat will not share any of his food(WTF! Seriously??). She doesn't even look back at her mother who wants her to stay at least for the night!
- The brat exhibits himself like a masterpiece of abominable and abhorrent parenting throughout the movie - saying, and writing cuss words about his grandma, stealing her only hairpin for pawning, throws away her shoes, and in spite of getting a meal at restaurant, Choco pies, doesn't even take the small bundle with him in the bus (forces her to carry it!). The movie is swamped with such scenes ...
- The grandma's stoic and tolerance actually made me livid but that was quite unfair of me - it was the kind of forbearance that millions of humans, especially women, manifested across centuries in many Indian and Asian cultures. When her hairpin is lost, she uses a spoon. She walks all the way from the town to the village because she ends up spending every penny meeting the demands of the brat. Such scenes form another flood where viewers might struggle to stay afloat.
- The social structure where people look after each other - this is something even today's Indian and Asian cultures might relate, realize, and hopefully preserve. The bus drivers, kids like Cheol-yi helping out the elders wherever possible, the old woman in the town that grandma meets regularly, the aged and fragile cycle-carrier man, the village folk leave a mark. The grandma gifts some medicine/nutrition to the ailing, and old cycle man who believes that he is just a dead wood now causing suffering to others, and insists that the grandma should consume those nutrients, which she denies.
- A partial transformation of the brat into an acceptable boy is shown inadequately, nevertheless, realistically. As soon as he receives a letter from his mother, he attempts to teach his grandma to copy some important messages, leaves a bunch of threads woven in the eyes of needles, spends time creating ready-to-post messages behind his play cards, leaves her a memento, and at least promises to return if she her health fails.
Directorial mettle:
- The grandmother isn't even named in the entire movie.
- She is not shown exhibiting any emotions except the scene where her daughter rushes back to the city. The viewers are left to see ordeals and experience themselves. Even when she cries the only time in the movie, the camera is facing her back, showing her wiping her tears.
- She is always toiling, but the only moment she is shown sitting idle for a moment is a touching one - she just stares over the mountains, jungle, and the sky!
- Only once she is shown to even mildly protest is when she doesn't ask the brat to put thread in the eye of the needle.
- The conversation between grandma and the old woman in the town is touching - the woman packs Choco pies as a gift for the brat but the grandma's dignity permit it, and she gives some farm produce as a return gift. While leaving, the old woman says to the grandma "Do visit again, and before anyone of us dies".
- The ending scene is quite melancholic - the grandma walks up the rubble path towards her home, steady and alone.
The movie is an epitome of how living close to nature, real humans makes you humble, a giver, tolerant, hardy, frugal. If planned and executed properly, such a lifestyle can bring peace and contentment as well.
Going along the main theme of the movie - do respect your elders, especially grandma/grandpa and older generation, and dedicate some time to them. After all, they won't be around long enough to slow you down or waste your time!
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