Korea Feature Animation News: 'The Dearest'

Feature animation from the young artists of the Korea Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) has illuminated the local festival circuit each of the past three years as the progeny of the educational group's joint effort to give its students some much-needed real-world exposure. The Dearest, quietly released to South Korea this past weekend, marks KAFA's fourth feature animation. The social drama looks to do what the medium does best: carve from the human subconscience a link of indelible experiences whose emotions are equally mysterious, alluring, and disconcerting.

Whereas last year proved a landmark in the exhibition and praise of animated film in Korea -- notably with the releases of Leafie: A Hen into the Wild and The King of Pigs {watch}, the new year remains a bit unknowable. Fortunately, the springtime release of KAFA's student-directed title The Dearest should get people talking. The film, co-written and directed by Kim Sun-ah and Park Se-hui, is an emotionally taxing expedition into the darkest corners of a rural village whose resentful treatment of an intellectually challenged woman unearths deep wells of anger and guilt from the protagonists.

In Ms. Kim and Ms. Park's The Dearest, the audience is first introduced to Eun-sil, a troubled young woman who struggles with mental retardation.

Eun-sil, from her childhood on through her young adulthood, was never treated without prejudice by the townspeople. As the years wore on, the child's hometown took advantage of the girl; Eun-sil, to be frank, was "a sexual plaything of the village," as translated film notes articulate.

The audience comes to learn this and more through the interests of In-hye and Sun-mi, two women who grew up with Eun-sil and have returned to their hometown after many years away. When these two women return to the presumably sleepy countryside, they are shocked to learn that Eun-sil has died while giving birth. The father is unknown. As The Dearest continues, In-hye and Sun-mi, troubled by these circumstances, enlist the help of another friend who had never left town. The three start digging, but they don't like what they find.

The Dearest is a work of social criticism, documenting these three characters' intersection in the life of a woman who, it would seem, never had much of a chance. The socially disadvantaged are prone to unimaginable levels of indifference and neglect. This lack of sympathy can manifest itself as sexual abuse, emotional disengagement, or some other profane form of remorseless cynicism.

In The Dearest, In-hye and Sun-mi cause a stir in the small village by kickstarting a search for the father of their late friend's baby.

The anger the women feel toward the town is met with equal bouts of umbrage and bitterness: In-hye takes in the abandoned child, but the townspeople actively organize and try to harm or kill the child outright. The architect of Eun-sil's demise, In-hye and the others conclude, is the town itself: warped religiosity, incompetent law enforcement, the elderly with dementia, teen sex consciousness, and even, years back, the women's treatment of Eun-sil as children.

Per the directors, The Dearest is not an indelicate portrait of how the underprivileged are preyed upon by sexual assault perpetrators. The film's open-palmed take on subjects of collectivism, sexual violence, abortion, and social resentment provide a fascinating challenge for interested moviegoers.

Director's Kim Sun-ah (age 27) and Park Se-hui (26) both graduated from the Korea Academy of Film Arts in 2010, majoring in Animated Feature Film Directing. The Dearest had its world premiere late last year, screening at the 13th Bucheon International Student Animation Festival (November 2011) and soon thereafter at the 37th Seoul independent Film Festival (December 2011).

The Dearest, as previously mentioned, is the fourth feature animation release from KAFA's student body. Previous efforts include the award-winning productions of What is Not Romance? {watch} and The Story of Mr. Sorry (2009). Last year saw the season release of The House {watch}, a combination 2D animation and hand-composite title produced by Park Mi-sun, Ban Joo-young, Lee Hyun-jin, Lee Jae-ho, and Park Eun-young.

Each of these films observes their chosen subjects with a distinct glint of humanism. The perpetually flawed nature of humankind begets several tremendous, if at times wholly unflattering emotions. In the context of their hard-to-escape realities, these films attempt to identify what it is that differentiates a spectator from a perpetrator.

(sources: HanCinema.net, The Korean Film Council, Korean Cinema Today, Daum.net Media, Naver.com Database, Prica, Yahoo! Korea)

Recent Korea Animation News:
"Korea Webcomic Adaptation: 26 Years" at AnimationInsider.net (02/2012)