The Ode to My Father movie review
Life of every human being can be seen as a constant pursuit for his goal or dream. For one person it is a pursuit for happiness and luck, for others pursuit of profits and success in work. The choice of the future prospects really depends on the way one used to establish the priority in his life. Hence, the people could be actually divided into careerists to whom their work will always take the first place and family men who will prefer to put their family in the forefront. The last ones are those loving, attentive creatures who are ready to lend a hand, to support in need and can even sacrifice themselves for the rescue of their relatives.
Exactly the life path of such devoted person is depicted in the Korean film The Ode to My Father. It tells the story of one Yeon Deok-su, a grandfather living in Busan but born in South Hamgyong province in North Korea, who strains at keeping his small shop open, despite all odds. He is now living with his wife and grandchildren and is painfully recollecting the events of the remote past. Through flashbacks, the viewers have a chance to observe the dreadful experiences and different hardships this man had to overcome in his life. In spite of all misfortunes that were reserved for him, this person not only managed to stand the test of life but furthermore raised his family from nothing to relative prosperity. The film also demonstrates the hard socio-economic situation of the people of the Republic of Korea throughout its difficult history and how the country was able to rise from being a recipient of foreign aid to a donor.
As a boy, Deok-su lost his father and younger sister during the evacuation of their hometown Hungnam during the Korean War. He escaped to Busan and settled down at an aunt's house. The five-year old boy had promised his father to take care of his family. So, now he bore the responsibility to be the man of the house, to help his mother to raise his two younger siblings and to earn a living.
The next episode of the character life which he reminisced was connected with his response to fight as non-military personnel on the side of the USA in the Vietnam War. Deok-su had never complained to his distressing destiny and took for granted all life’s endurance tests. His father entrusted him with the responsibility of the entire family and he was disposed to any personal sacrifices. Even in Vietnam he could show the courage in withstanding a succession of perils and at the same time sustaining his friend’s hope and helping him to find a wife in a South Vietnamese villager that they helped evacuate.
The scenes depicting the Hungnam Evacuation of 1951, the perilous mines of Germany and the devastated villages of Vietnam met with approval and deserved great attention. They were not only extremely spectacular in scope and rich in details but gave viewers an opportunity to feel all the tension and asperities of such horrid situations. Watching the whole life story of Deok-su from his youth up to elderly age, one is able to understand the reality of those hard times, suffer the character’s pains and be completely absorbed into his life journey.
During the 1980s, Deok-su tried his luck in finding his lost father and sister through TV shows and the family separated during reunited the Korean War was finally reunited. He joined innumerable South Koreans separated from their loved ones who participated in a program on KBS. In this broadcast people were given an opportunity to state the names of their lost relatives, hoping at heart that the lost were living and would one day send a word. This moment of reunion was very touching and not sensitive or hard-hearted enough this episode will probably bring you to tears. Although many scenes are too deliberately sentimental, the film still includes a story close to most Koreans of that time. There is a heart in it that makes you feel all the pain of a person who lived in that generation. After watching it one would surely appreciate and understand his parents and grandparents even more, wishing to return them all the kindness.
The film, however, obtained a lot of critiques and raised controversy. The biggest one is obviously connected with the attempt to idealize the past of the country under the rule of authoritarian regimes. The film depicted a lot of real events in Korea’s recent past, though most of them were distorted that was auspicious to the Park Cheung Hee dictatorship. For example, nothing was told about Americans’ savagery against Korean people before and during the Korean War or the bloody student protests of the late 1980s. This struggle of students and workers in bringing about democracy and a share in prosperity was simply denied. Despite the fact that both events even now could be regarded as ones of special importance, there was not the smallest implication of those touchy subjects. The political left accused the whole film to be a whitewashed version of history that was under the thumb of the ruled government and was consistent with its politics of iron fists.In attempting to laud the toils of the postwar generation, the movie actually neglected the human costs and terrible consequences of the country’s speedy development.
Truly speaking, Ode to My Father can be seen as an oppressive idea of how the just history could look like. It was exactly that time when Park Geun Hye’s government enacted the controversial legislation to use at school only those textbooks which were presenting the “correct history”. One will not find any lies in the film. The distortion of the history was basically achieved through the gross exaggeration of some facts and the lapse of others.
Park Geun Hye reportedly enjoyed the film and that started even more vivacious discussions and the most damning criticism of all. When emphasizing the need for patriotism, the president cited the scene from the movie. It was the episode where the Duk-su and his wife unexpectedly stopped to argue and paid a hand salute to the national flag the very moment the national anthem started to play. Park Geun-hye expressed his idea that The Ode to My Father explained the indefatigable pursuit for building up the country and the extraordinary devotion of people to their homeland.
The South Korean national anthem actually called for respecting and loving the country in the moments of joy as well as in the moments of grief. The president believed people comprehended the complexity of the situation and were ready to suffer all the pain together with their country. There were a lot of “Deok-su duplicates” throughout South Korea who were enduring all the hardships with fortitude and had never even intended to blame their government for their own miseries.
On the one hand, taking into consideration a few film and culture critics, one should understand it as "conservative" or "right-wing" film that exalted industrialization. It showed the closed ideology where people used to give up their individual rights for the sake of national development. They were forced to make personal scarifies in the name of economic prosperity and could not change anything because the state could simply exploit its people. However, on the other hand these assumptions could be really controversial if paying attention to the difficult reality of that period. The director of the film, in his turn objected any political ideas concerning his work and was even disturbed by the controversial discussion it had caused. He stimulated people not to live in the past and simply let it go. The present of the country was much more important and its “modern history was something to be proud of” (Catsoulis, 2012).
Excluding all the critics, the film continued to win audience’s sympathy. Critic Jeong Ji-wuk stated that “combining different factors, such as being a story of the father and son relationship and the curiosity provoked by political debates The Ode to My Father managed to top 10 million in attendance” (Borowiec, 2015).
So, it is up to everybody to approve the films success or to completely excoriate it. The truth is that it is a real nostalgia for those who lived around the era in which Deok-su grew up. The moment they will watch it, they will understand it as their own ode and have a sensation of comfort.
Works Cited
Jeannette Catsoulis. Searching for Family Along a River of Tears. JK Youn’s ‘Ode to My Father’ Features a Korean Odyssey. The New York Times. Web, 8 January. 2015.
Steven Borowiec. 'Ode to My Father' stirs the box office and debate in South Korea. Los Angeles Times. Web, 31 January. 2015.
