On an impulse to reconnect with her origins, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born, before being adopted and raised in France. The headstrong young woman starts looking for her biological parents in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.
No Return, Sans retou, Back to Seoul, 내가 아닌 모든 나, Atgriešanās Seulā, Tillbaka till Seoul, 回首爾後, 回到首爾
Few movies have ever been more perfectly in tune with their protagonists than Davy Chou’s jagged, restless, and rivetingly unpredictable “Return to Seoul,” a shark-like adoption drama that its 25-year-old heroine wears like an extra layer of skin or sharp cartilage. The film spans eight years over the course of two hours, but you can feel its bristly texture and self-possessed violence from the disorienting first scenes.
Played by plastic artist and first-time actress Park Ji-Min (who gives a towering performance worthy of the same attention that Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh will receive for their work this fall), the French-raised Freddie arrives in Seoul without context, which leaves us the fool’s errand of trying to “solve” her identity over…
Seoul-set, French dialogue...goth clubbing... sad girl... I was always set up to love this. Blown away by Park Ji-min's performance and the way she internalizes her pain and then leaves behind a trail of chaos. There's one throwaway line/side plot that is maybe played for comedy (?) that I thought was random and left a bad taste and I wish it wasn't included at all, but the rest of the film is so beautiful and powerful. Gutted.
Park Ji-Min’s performance gutted me. This film — due to her tricksy, yearning, wild performance — had me in tears; it showed me parts of myself I have turned away from and in some cases, didn’t know were even there. And isn’t that what a great performance does? Show you aspects of your humanity that are impossible to get away from and even trickier to name, to make peace with.
It's nice to see the tradition of french coming of age movies about loners who don't fit into the system finally be about a french-korean girl.
The opening restaurant scene is amazing.
건배
Park Ji-min ruuuuuuuules, really well made portrait of a fractured lifetime led by a woman who rarely has much desire to put it back together. Dug it!
First off, this film is the most existential depiction of an anxious ambivalent crisis that I have ever seen. It’s an intimate character study of a flawed and relatable lost soul with identity issues - which she comes by quite honestly - and a visceral empathetic journey through the turning points and major revelations in this protagonist’s life. Not to mention that the film just looks and sounds great in so many parts.
When she first arrives in Seoul - the place of her birth - almost by chance, she knows who she is: a fun-loving adventurous independent French woman. In connecting with her homeland and birth parents she becomes aware of the missing part of her identity which is…
I think I’m happy. I hope you are too.
lost in translation. learning to be okay with the idea that your life might be irreparably broken, whether that be via familial ties, culture clash, failed relationships, or your own changing self identity is a long, messy process that almost never ends in neat catharsis but rather loose, sad fadeouts into nothing. at the same time, however, this is a work of art about how one tinder hookup can turn anyone into an arms dealer. good movie
