RETURN TO SEOUL: REVIEWS BY YIFM
31 March 2023
EAFFI: Young Irish Filmmakers & Young Irish Critics
The Young Irish Critics initiative aims to create a more informal education space for young people to engage with international and youth-authored/classic and independent cinema (film and animation). With thanks to all at YIFM and Young Irish Critics for collaborating with us again in 2023!
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REVIEW BY KHUSHI JAIN
RETURN TO SEOUL
A resolution is a moment, not movement. And identity is liquid, rhythmic and sometimes even volatile. The 2022 Return to Seoul, as the very name suggests, is a journey, a journey of identity; the living, breathing, mercurial movement of a 25-year old French adoptee, Freddie (Park Ji Min), to and within South Korea. A bildungsroman pulsating with music, this film is an itinerary to self-discovery and belonging. It premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is now showing as part of EAFFI 2023.
Directed by Davy Chou, a Cambodian-French filmmaker, the film was inspired by the experiences of one of Chou’s friends. Freddie’s return to Seoul is accidental and her search for her biological parents is impulsive. She struggles to conceptualise resurrected relationships, as she undergoes metamorphoses in translation, both metaphorically and literally (Freddie doesn’t know any Korean). Her story raises issues of identity, family and home, which the film explores with a seasoned delicacy.
Return to Seoul frequently leaps in time but interestingly, not so much in space. The film begins almost in medias res, as we do not get a single glimpse of Freddie in France. Although she is cinematically rooted in South Korea, Freddie is a stranger at home; there is awkwardness, discomfort and the shock of it all. The camera is skilled at conveying this undercurrent of disturbance. It is fluid yet stable, and at times, very still, creating an invitation to pause. The film is littered with patient close-ups of Freddie, capturing her anxiety; showing rather than telling. But when the film does resort to dialogue, it interweaves it into Freddie almost like a voiceover. Music is Freddie’s constant companion and as much a character as her. There is a fill-in-the-blank-ness to it and in a wonderfully clever ending, Freddie moves from being a consumer of music to a producer of it.
This is perhaps the only change with some logical trajectory. In all other aspects of Freddie, the film is chaotic. Right from the opening, it becomes clear that Freddie is restless and unpredictable. She is naïve, rebellious, irreverent, sad, tender, selfish and lonely, all at once; the anti-heroine par excellence. Fidgeting with her sense of self, she feels constantly dislocated. Who is she? She jumps from family to lovers to careers, trying to find an answer. And Park Ji Min is surprisingly adept at bringing Freddie to life. A first-time actor, she is supremely talented and plays with dramatic tension with such finesse.
Return to Seoul was originally titled All the People I’ll Never Be, a testament to the mess that identity is. The film steers clear of any kind of blatant resolutions, and in doing so, chooses to retain its mobility. But despite this, it is anything but frustrating. It acknowledges the turbulence of youth and appreciates the passing of time. And in a very Socratic way, defines identity with no definition. Return to Seoul celebrates the moment in movement. (Khushi Jain, March 2023)
REVIEW BY Adelaide Thermes Kane
RETURN TO SEOUL
Return to Seoul gives a look into the complexities of hybrid ethnocultural identity by following the story of a French born adoptee named Freddie, played by first time actor Ji-Min Park. After arriving in Korea, Freddie is prompted to try and get in touch with her birth parents and manages to get contact from her father (Oh Kwang-rok). She struggles greatly to connect with him as she herself is grappling with being raised French and having a lost connection with being Korean, wanting to belong fully but finding herself in part between the two.
This film, is written and directed by French-Cambodian director Davy Chou based loosely on a friend’s story, speaks true to the issues and difficulties surrounding mass adoption which had been prevalent in Korea during times of political unrest, particularly pre-nineties. During the continual fight for power by dictatorships in South Korea, many children were sent out of the country at a pace far too rapid to keep accurate documentation, some being falsified in an attempt to get them out quicker. In adulthood, these adoptee children are seeking links back to their birthplace and are finding it difficult to follow the trail. Chou’s film gives stage to this line of inquiry, something that Korean’s are experiencing across the world, creating a new, shared cultural grievance for this generation of returning children.
Return to Seoul features many time skips, ultimately spanning about eight years. This splitting of time reflects the fractured nature of the character of Freddie herself, she is indecisive and unsure of her place and it takes her years to reconcile with any of this. This speaks to the longevity of hurt that can be caused with being disconnected from ethnocultural background and that even when that connection is found again, a new difficulty lies within finding where that fits in the life already known.
Though much about Freddie’s life changes with each time skip, she has some consistencies, one being her emotional attachment to music, particularly piano pieces. Though she speaks broken Korean and has missed out on many experiences with her birth relations, she finds connection and relatability in the music they share, something that transcends language and barriers between them. It is in this motif that Freddie finds solace and can be seen by the audience to have a sliver of peace among her struggle to find herself through the utilisation of this alternative fluency. By using this, Chou allows the character of Freddie and by extension, all hybrid identity adoptees, to exist as more than a complex binary of belonging. (Adelaide Thermes Kane, March 2023)
REVIEW BY OSCAR MEAGHER
RETURN TO SEOUL
It occurs to me that there’s not really that much I can add to a discussion regarding Return to Seoul. The protagonist’s life experiences, troubles, even her first language and ethnicity are completely foreign to me. I have never been up for adoption (I don’t think) nor have crossed oceans in a desperate search for those who I felt could finally fill that void of emptiness within me (not yet). I have however always been a fan of Roger Ebert’s sentiment that movies are a machine for generating empathy, of which I can happily say is director Davy Chou and star Ji-Min Park’s crowning achievement with this film. Through the invisible barriers of language, sex and life experience, I found a deep connection with Frederique’s pain. Connection is the key word here, connection is everything. It is something we all crave whether we can accept it or not. She desires connection above everything and is even able to force it on occasion. With roommates, random restaurant patrons, or any troubled boy, themselves looking for the connection and acceptance of a female counterpart. These relationships are easy and hollow, ones she can snap away before a real intimacy can take form, only again to be pulled away from her. The real connection she desires, one built on unrequited love and protection is separated from her by those same invisible barriers of language, culture, and life experience. Return to Seoul doesn’t simply succeed due to its acting, directing, and writing, but due to how it profoundly understands the human experience, particularly the modern day adolescent experience.
In a work with no shortage of great performances, Ji-Min Park stands tall. The way she looks, the way she doesn’t look, the way she smiles before breaking into a fit of despair. The way her body tenses when letting her father cross that invisible barrier by actually touching her. This is a two-hour film that documents a decade in a girl’s life, with so little, she can convey a striking amount. That hole isn’t softened by the maturity that comes with age, it just keeps growing, engulfing anyone that can temporarily sustain her needs. Without this bravura performance, that tether of connection between audience and screen would cease entirely.
Did I like the film? Sure, I did. I wouldn’t call it a laugh riot or a great date film, but it satisfied another part of me, the part of me that longs for something else. After the film ended, I got up, brushed my teeth, and went to bed without a word to anyone else. Only the next day, my mind was occupied only by the film. I wasn’t haunted by it, it didn’t upset me, quite the opposite. It gave me a kind of strange relief in that throughout the world, throughout different nationalities, sexualities, races, genders, cultures, that I was not alone. These are the same universal desires that we all share, and the exact reason that Return to Seoul deserves your attention. (Oscar Meagher, March 2023)
REVIEW BY CONOR LYALL
RETURN TO SEOUL
Return to Seoul is a French-language film directed by Davy Chou, which tells the story of a French-Korean adoptee named Freddie who returns to Seoul in search of her birth mother. The film explores themes of identity, belonging, and the complexities of adoption. The film is beautifully shot, with stunning cinematography that captures the vibrant city of Seoul. The director has done an excellent job of balancing the emotional intensity of the story with the beauty of the setting, creating a visually striking film that is also emotionally compelling. The performances in the film are also strong, particularly that of lead actress Ji-Min Park, who portrays Freddie with depth and sensitivity. The supporting cast, which includes some well-known Korean actors, also deliver strong performances, adding to the authenticity and richness of the film. One of the strengths of Return to Seoul is its exploration of the complexities of adoption, particularly transnational adoption. The film raises important questions about identity and belonging, and how these are impacted by adoption. It also highlights the difficulties and emotional toll that the search for one’s birth family can have, particularly in a foreign country with a different language and culture. Overall, Return to Seoul is a powerful and thought-provoking film that explores important themes in a nuanced and sensitive way. The film is a moving portrayal of the complexities of adoption, and the search for identity and belonging that lies at its core. (Conor Lyall, March 2023)
REVIEW BY AMY MCFARLAND
RETURN TO SEOUL
Davy Chou’s third feature, Return to Seoul, is an identity driven transnational film, focusing on one woman's journey over a span of a decade. It follows 25 year old Freddie, who was brought up in France by her adoptive parents, on her semi-reluctant search for her biological parents after briefly returning to Korea. While her father replies eagerly to the Adoption Agency’s telegrams, her mother stays silent. These differing reactions impact Freddie’s life in the years following.
The dialogue ‘I’m French’, ’You’re also part Korean’ is a perfect reference point for both describing the character of Freddie and the main theme of the film. Freddie’s nonchalant exterior, and her determination not to learn Korean, keeps a wall built between her and her biological family. The language and cultural barrier is shown so clearly by Freddie’s friend as she translates for her, always changing her sentences to something more appropriate. She refuses to admit her identity as Korean whilst also having an underlying emotional connection to her homeland and a desire to know about her Mother, or more importantly, why her mother doesn’t want to see her after all these years. Park Ji-min, this being her feature debut, does an incredible job portraying all of these facets and elements to Freddie’s personality and trauma.
Stylistically, the choice to have purple as Freddie’s colour separates her from the rest of the cast, as she is alien to the culture she is from. Another stand out aspect of the film was its soundtrack, composed by Jérémie Arcache and Christophe Musset. It added to the overall style of the film, matching Freddie’s fast paced and flippant personality, building suspense surrounding the uncertainty of what she would do next.
However, despite the strong themes and important yet personal narrative, the film was let down by its pacing. Whilst the first half is slow, and purely focused on her trip to Korea, the second half consists of four time jumps, the longest jump being 5 years. Although this gives us a sense of scale in terms of impact in her life, the narrative feels disconnected and her arch inconsistent, as clearly there are events the audience are not privy to. We were a part of her journey for only half the film, the rest we can only catch glimpses. Alongside this, the exposition at points became information overload, accidentally starting to suffocate a beautiful story.
Overall, Return to Seoul is a decent film that is well acted, with a good sound track and some heartfelt moments, but its impact is ultimately dulled by its exposition and pacing. (Amy McFarland, March 2023)
