Retrospective: Lee Chang-dong

Section programme

It flickers—like the glint on a wall in Oasis (2002), remains elusive—like the Green Fish splashing in the stream (1997), or hides in plain sight—like the cat in Burning (2018). This hidden layer reveals itself slowly, never fully, and only for a fleeting moment—like a shaft of sunlight that briefly illuminates the apartment in Burning. And it often appears in the least expected places, because in Lee Chang-dong’s cinema, nothing is what it seems. Spectacular economic success turns out to be built—literally—on a pile of crap; a woman with Alzheimer’s is the only one who truly remembers; God is a cheerful car mechanic; crystal-clear justice speaks in beleaguered rhymes; and systemic violence wears the costume of prosperity, family, and political order.

The work of one of South Korea’s most important contemporary directors blends epic scope with intimate detail and seamlessly intertwines individual and collective experiences. Deeply rooted in local context and Korean history, filtered through personal experience, his films incisively dissect social and political mechanisms—ones we also recognize from our own backyard. Deepening stratification, patriarchal violence (Lee’s sensitivity to this issue is worth appreciating), corruption, and the marginalization of nonconformists all come under his lens. So does what could be called “patho-development”—the building of a turbo-capitalist future upon historical amnesia and the suffering of the vulnerable. Like a patient detective, Lee strives to recognize reality for what it truly is, to peel back more layers of illusion. In early films like Green Fish (a story about the structures of gangster power) and Peppermint Candy (1999, which retraces the scars left by the Gwangju massacre), he digs down to the rotten core of national trauma. But in Burning, his most recent completed work, the source of fear, anger, and frustration remains opaque. Based on a story by Haruki Murakami, the film masterfully captures the zeitgeist: in a world where the lines between the state and corporate interests, the real and the imagined, have all blurred, and where the chasm between dazzling wealth and life on the edge of poverty widens insidiously, it becomes nearly impossible for the young protagonist, Lee Jong-su, to locate the fire consuming him. Burning stands as one of the most significant portraits of contemporary youth.

From the start of his career, Lee has been in close dialogue with the world around him. Coming from a left-wing middle-class background, he came to cinema as a mature artist: already an acclaimed writer (his short stories were published in English for the first time this February, in the volume Snowy Day and Other Stories), a screenwriter, a playwright, a journalist, and a teacher. Over time, he also became a producer. In 2003, he was appointed Minister of Culture and Tourism, a position he held for two years. He paid a high price for his political activism and openly expressed leftist beliefs: an eight-year hiatus from directing (between Poetry and Burning) during which he was blacklisted by a right-wing government. This sense of civic responsibility is something he shares with his mentor, Park Kwang-su—one of the founders of the New Korean Cinema movement and now the director of the Busan International Film Festival, the largest such event in Asia. Lee wrote his first screenplays for Park’s films: To the Starry Island (1993) and A Single Spark (1995).

And he is a remarkable screenwriter. Every one of his films is built on a deliberate, intelligent structure. They unfold in unexpected ways, and even when they seem to be following obvious solutions, Lee knowingly challenges and subverts them. He is unafraid of extremes and often subjects his characters to harrowing emotional experiences. A recurring theme is the pervasive, yet often hidden, violence—whether physical, psychological, institutional, or systemic. From Green Fish and Oasis to Peppermint Candy, Poetry (2010), and Secret Sunshine (2007), Lee Chang-dong portrays a cruel and ruthless world. Among these, Oasis is perhaps the most provocative: it opens with a shocking encounter between two societal outcasts—an ex-convict and a young woman with cerebral palsy (Lee’s sister lived with the condition). This kind of systemic violence—wielded by the state, family, or patriarchy—operates through its own structures, rituals, and forms of displacement. The response from Lee’s characters is sometimes impotent rage: the desperate fury of those in Burning, Oasis, or Secret Sunshine who lash out at heaven.

Yet in Lee’s cinema, suffering and injustice are always counterbalanced. “Poetry is to pursue the beauty,” says the teacher in Poetry. The same could be said of Lee’s films, which—while confronting the pain of lives entangled in political, economic, and social turmoil—still find solace in the memory of a single day, the taste of a peppermint candy, the way sunlight dances on a wall, the arc of a badminton shuttle, a pile of dirty dishes or a puddle. What these moments mean remains a mystery, for Lee is a master of the cinematic enigma. Perhaps it is a glimpse of some deeper, metaphysical order; perhaps it is a fragile spark of innocence preserved in the wreckage of life. Perhaps it is a declaration of faith in the power of cinematic poetry—or simply, the poetry of the everyday. Whatever the hidden dimension in his films may be, I would dare to say: Lee Chang-dong may be a great pessimist, but above all, he is a guardian of hope.

Małgorzata Sadowska
translated by Barbara Feliga

The retrospective will include all of his feature works:

• Green Fish (Chorok mulkogi, 1997)
• Peppermint Candy (Bakha satang, 1999)
• Oasis (Oasiseu, 2002)
• Secret Sunshine (Milyang, 2007)
• Poetry (Shi, 2010)
• Burning (Beoning, 2018)

The retrospective will also showcase two films by Park Kwang-su—To the Starry Island (Geu seome gago shibda, 1993) and A Single Spark (Jeon tae-il, 1995)—a key figure in the Korean New Wave and a mentor to Lee Chang-dong, with whom Lee collaborated as a screenwriter. The program will also include A Brand New Life (Yeohaengja), directed by Ounie Lecomte and Lee Jong-eon, and produced by Lee Chang-dong, as well as the aforementioned documentary Lee Chang-dong: The Art of Irony by Alain Mazars.

This project is supported by the Korean Cultural Center in Warsaw.

Many thanks to Łukasz Mańkowski, who met with Lee Chang-dong in Seoul on behalf of New Horizons and recorded introductions made by the director, which will be shown during the festival's retrospective of his work.