EU:<\/strong> Eugene<\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> Elise<\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Peyton<\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> This is a Eugene movie because it\u2019s about friendship, and it focuses on food as love, food as communication, et cetera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> And leaving your shitty job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> I mean, we have to talk about the food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> She made some delicious looking things, she also made some what the fuck is that<\/em>, you\u2019re putting some weird\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Flowers? <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> Yes, it was like an oil pasta with flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> But the other half of it was the work she put into it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Yes, the process was the point, not so much the end goal. Which I think is the same with the farming in this, like she was planting a lot as well, and it was about the process of that. And then also . . . haha, this is what the movie is about, but <\/em>healing . . . It is about the end goal, but the process<\/em> of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> I definitely think labor played a really big role in the movie. Because Kim Tae-Ri\u2019s character in the beginning, Hye-won, is working towards her education permit, she\u2019s trying to become a teacher. But it\u2019s something that she personally didn\u2019t want, it was an idea that her boyfriend had had and they were planning on doing it together. So she\u2019s living this life in this city, borrowing someone else\u2019s goals and time and existence, and she\u2019s going along with it, and at some point it becomes too much for her and she realizes she doesn\u2019t have anything to herself. And so she runs away from it. The rest of the labor that she does at that point is dedicated to herself. All the labor she puts in nourishes herself, because it all comes back to her as food or her long-time friends. So, there is a labor element to it, and I think that\u2019s kind of helped by her two friends. Because the male friend [Jae-ha] left his shitty corporate job, like he just burnt all the bridges and went and became a farmer. And then the female friend, Eun-sook, we see in the beginning is very okay with being in this small town as a bank teller, and then at the end she hits her boss\u2019s head with a tambourine and gets fired. So there is this idea of a certain kind of labor not sitting well with people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> But there\u2019s also a moment with Eun-sook, the bank teller, where Hye-won is like, \u201cYou should just tell him off or you should just quit,\u201d and she\u2019s like, \u201cWe\u2019re not all like you, I do want to stay here,\u201d or \u201cI do want to continue with this, this is solid for me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> But she gives in at the end . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n P: <\/strong>Does the mom come home at the end? <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU: <\/strong>I think it\u2019s hinted at, but I think it\u2019s not important whether the mom comes home or not. Because basically Hye-won cleans up her life in Seoul, like she closes her apartment, does all that, and when she comes back, the door to their house is open. But we don\u2019t see who it is and we don\u2019t see if they\u2019re still there. We just see that someone has come in. So she could have come in, read Hye-won\u2019s letter, and left again, but we just don\u2019t know what that interaction was like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Yeah, I think you\u2019re right in that the most important thing is that she officially closed down everything in the city and decided\u2014because she was being delusional the whole movie, about like \u201cI\u2019m only here for a season\u201d\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019m going back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> And then it would be the next season. And she was planting down roots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> Literally<\/em> planting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> And I think the movie began somewhat in medias res<\/em>, like she\u2019s already moved in and you kind of have to piece back . . . like you kinda think, oh it\u2019s about the boyfriend or about the job<\/em>, but then the movie really goes into like: this is about her relationship with her mother. All the memories, all the flashbacks start to go back to her mom, and how tied to her mother\u2019s memory the house is, cooking is . . . It\u2019s that cooking is love language thing. [Hye-won] was with her boyfriend and her boyfriend said, \u201cShe keeps cooking for me, this is lame,\u201d and that\u2019s how her mother took care of her. And I think she realized that I can\u2019t be here<\/em>. And she returns to where her mother was last that she knows of. Then that\u2019s where the movie starts and you have to piece backwards, this is actually about her and her mother<\/em>. \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> Even with the boyfriend, we only find out about it in passing conversations that she has with her friends. Because they\u2019d be like, \u201cDo you have a boyfriend, what happened with your boyfriend, where is he?\u201d And then we start seeing snippets of flashbacks. We don\u2019t really get her talking about it, it\u2019s just her being like whatever, I\u2019m done with it<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> And even the relationship stuff with Jae-ha, it doesn\u2019t ever come to anything, it doesn\u2019t resolve, because it\u2019s not the heart of the movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> Which is the mother-daughter relationship . . . I thought it was interesting that the mom is shown not being a bad mother for like 80% of the film, because in all those memories, she was a pretty good mom, and then Hye-won tells her mom, \u201cI\u2019m not going to live this country bumpkin life, fuck you, I\u2019m going to the city, I\u2019m gonna go to college and I\u2019m gonna do my own thing, and I\u2019m gonna have my own journey.\u201d That\u2019s when the mother has a realization, and the very next day, the mom\u2019s gone. And the mom goes on her own journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> It\u2019s so weird, [the mom] is like, \u201cOh, she\u2019s gotta figure it out.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> So it makes me wonder if the mom felt like she needed her own space, like her own time to figure things out? But, I don\u2019t know. I think they\u2019re paralleling the journey of some kind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> It\u2019s kind of a shitty Mom thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> But it happens way at the end of their relationship. Why would you\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> That\u2019s so wild for you to be like, \u201cShe\u2019s going to college, she\u2019ll be fine, I\u2019m leaving.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> [The mom] must have believed that to a certain extent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> That [her daughter] will be fine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> Yeah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> I do think to a certain extent, college\/high school is around the time that you begin to realize your mother is her own person. Not to say that what she did was great. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> But to eliminate a whole support system for your child as they\u2019re becoming an adult, that\u2019s a lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> I kind of thought the movie was leading up to [Hye-won] having run away, in a sense, from the city life and dropping it and her boyfriend being like, Are you coming back? <\/em>and the apartment deal not being dealt with. And then you slowly realize over time this thing with the mother, that the mother had left her, and now she\u2019s kinda done the same thing. So I was thinking, Oh, she\u2019s come full circle<\/em>, not that she\u2019s become<\/em> her mother, but she\u2019s reached a point of understanding<\/em>, where she understands what her mother did. Because she has had to do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU: <\/strong>To just run away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Yeah, to just run away from those problems. I feel like the letter is really important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> From what I remember, in the letter it was not completely shown to us, but in the little monologue that she gives, it\u2019s like, I\u2019ve come to certain truths about myself and I\u2019m leaving you a recipe of my own that I\u2019ve developed<\/em>. Because the entire movie Hye-won is making recipes that her mother has taught her, and she kinda learns that some of those recipes that she used to think were genius, were actually copied from other vendors and things like that. Like the okonomiyaki pancake that she\u2019s like, My mom\u2019s a genius<\/em>, and that’s just a common street food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> A lot of this movie is about realizing . . . you stop idolizing your mother as<\/em> your mother. And it\u2019s about, we\u2019re both adults. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EL:<\/strong> We\u2019re both just a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n P: <\/strong>Yes, we\u2019re both people trying to deal with that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> And at the beginning of the film, it\u2019s cold as she\u2019s moving back in, remember, and her aunt is like Oh have you heard from your mom, do you know what\u2019s going on? <\/em>And she\u2019s like Don\u2019t talk to me about my mom.<\/em> The aunt says a line like, “Who can understand your mother? She\u2019s such a person, an individual.” And Hye-won doesn\u2019t say anything about it, but by the end of this journey, when she comes back and it\u2019s winter again, she kind of has that moment of, Oh, I do understand my mother<\/em>. So I guess it really is just about moms, labor, and food and healing. I do think there\u2019s an element of part of the messaging is that life is about the connections you make, the food you eat together, those moments you share together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Obviously the whole food-as-communal thing is not new by any means, literally dating back to Christ. And in the film, Hye-won makes alcohol, doesn\u2019t she? And she mentions, oh, the best time<\/em>\u2014you have to drink it at this time, sharing it with other people<\/em>. So even though a lot of the food she makes in this is for herself, it is also about opening up to sharing with others.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> This is very distinctly Korean culture, but traditional Korean food, everything is for the table<\/em>. You\u2019re never given your own individual plate. The only thing that\u2019s yours is your rice bowl, and then you eat collectively from everything. But even if you\u2019re going out for Western food, like if we<\/em> were going out to pasta . . . we would all share from each other\u2019s plates. We just order based off our preferences, but the idea of sharing is still baked into the equation already. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> We also never see her mom eating the food she makes except<\/em> for the tomato. Everything else is the mom making something and then feeding her daughter, and then we watch Hye-won make food for herself and start sharing it with her friends, cooking for her friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> I think there\u2019s also\u2014I keep coming back to this learning about your parents thing\u2014because I\u2019ve done the same thing, like when you\u2019re a kid and your parents give you advice and you\u2019re just like, sure, whatever, adult things<\/em>. And then you actually become an adult and you\u2019re like wow, that was actually really fantastic advice, or it’s advice I always come back to. And hers is just a simple, you know, enjoying a tomato in the summer, but even just small moments like that, where you stop and realize: there was wisdom in this. And there\u2019s wisdom in gardening, planting, sustaining\u2014small moments of appreciation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU: <\/strong>I definitely think it\u2019s not completely idyllic, because the storm passes through and destroys all the orchards and the things they were all working on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> Yeah, this was a very slice-of-life film, like the drama of it is so<\/em> under the surface. But that idea of the storm passing through is like, life is random, shit just happens. And sometimes we just have to deal and sometimes we just have to keep going through it. And sometimes the drama in life is external, even as we\u2019re dealing with internal . . . All the drama in the film is internal, this tension between past\/present, memory and not-memory, mother\/daughter, kind of divides like that . . . We\u2019re always cutting back and forth between seasons, between years, between memory. So despite how simple the film is, there is a lot of disturbance, disruption\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> The seasons are consistent, but the years are not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n P:<\/strong> So a lot of the drama is internal, we have to piece together from her memory and her own process of going through it, but that doesn\u2019t mean that external factors like your drama with friends or weather patterns won\u2019t affect you just as much. As much as you\u2019re going through your own shit\u2014oh, now I have to deal with the storm damaging my crops<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n EU:<\/strong> That reminds me of when she fights with Eun-sook because Eun-sook has a crush on the guy friend. And Hye-won is like, I have no interest in this because I\u2019m dealing with my own fucking problems<\/em>. But she\u2019s so self-absorbed in her own problems that when the friend comes to her for advice like on the boss and about the boy, they end up fighting because Eun-sook is like, I can tell you don\u2019t actually listen to be because I\u2019m not <\/em>you, I\u2019m not going to do what you\u2019re telling me to do because you\u2019re saying what <\/em>you would do and I\u2019m not that. And you\u2019re not listening<\/em>. But Hye-won is so absorbed in her own world that she cannot think about other perspectives like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/closereadblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Screen-Shot-2023-05-09-at-6.19.20-PM.png?resize=1024%2C503&ssl=1\")
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