Perspectives
Dir. Lee Young-mi

A woman in her forties, a university professor, is carrying out scientific research on a relevant theme: “Changes in female psychology following marital unfaithfulness”. The story of her unfortunate personal life (but that is a big “secret”) is told by… an inanimate object, by a copier, so let us forgive a certain straightforwardness of the narration. The copier is worried: since the time its owner hired a new assistant for her sociological research, her life has become all messed-up. The young man has the looks of a super model as though he stepped down from the video supplement to the South Korean version of “Penthouse”.
It became especially noticeable after the professor and the student interviewed a lascivious woman who enthusiastically cheated on her husband and had no remorse about it.

This fateful encounter had a deep effect on the professor. She looked at her student with different eyes and it occurred to her academic mind to do with him what is very reluctantly indulged in (judging by the movie) with middle-aged women in South Korea. But her views which proved to be not so liberal prevented this lady with the Internet nickname “Liberalcunt” from accomplishing an instant transition from words to actions. There are a number of reasons. First of all, the rigid morals still do not allow a South Korean woman (especially an older one) to look upon a man (especially a youth) as a sexual “object” (the morals, naturally, do not look the other way). Secondly, the traditional Confucian approach denies any erotic overtones in the lofty relations between the teacher and the disciple.

In her feature-length debut, which caused an uproar in her native country, the 45-year-old feminist Lee Young-mi boldly challenged the obsolete taboos, but unfortunately did no find the radical artistic means to express these legitimate protests. Feminine sexual longing is shown with the help of trite metaphors worthy of erotic Hollywood blockbusters like “Wild Orchid” or “Two Moon Juncture”, intended for the same grateful audience but shot by men. Subconsciously copying those movies, the brave Young-mi turns her romantic hero into a voyeristic sexual object, who is as animate as silicone sex symbols from movies directed by males. They admire females as impotents would and possess them purely symbolically.

Stas Tyrkin