The Inconsistent Consistency

For me, it’s a new kind of watching experience. The movie is inconsistent in a sense that the second half deviates a lot from the melodramatic representation of characters and comic plots in an upbeat mood of the first half. The massive information that flows through the second half is not something I prepare or expect for. It takes me a while to realize that the scene of Chilsu sitting in the police car and staring at Gina through the widow is actually the ending of this movie. Normally, after watching a movie I am able to generate some thoughts immediately. But the inconsistency in this movie is so predominant that I couldn’t come up with any. I’m confused not by the plots, but the way how story is being told and the underlying meaning of the images, scripts and context that I simply miss while I am giggling during the first half of the movie.

The story is also a double-protagonist structure, in which the two protagonists undergo similar life experience: dysfunctional family, unstable billboard painting jobs and disability to change their social statuses. For me, acknowledging the situations of Mansu’s and Chilsu’s father is like opening a Pandora Box. From the reading, I realized that Mansu’s father is put in jail due to his sympathy of communists, which explains why Mansu get called out by the government officer and denied to work aboard. And the place where Chilsu’s family lives used to be controlled by the American soldiers during the intervention period. These two fathers seem to be the stem of all the obstacles which Mansu and Chilsu encounter. Although the Korean society is under a democratization progress, in reality the lower class people are still limited by their ascribed characteristics (minjung connection) no matter how talented they are. Standing on top of the billboard is by no mean to get attention. Mansu and Chilsu are just seeking for a place that is big enough for them to set feet in, free enough to speak out their frustration and open enough to accept them as normal. The aftermath of their brief freedom is an ironic tragedy, in which Mansu jumped off the rooftop and Chilsu get caught by the police due to their non-political-motivated political demonstration. It is the only time the society cares about what they do and what they say despite the fact that their message is mistaken the whole time.

Although the contents are different from time to time, Chilsu and Mansu echoes the same calling for social changes with A Single Spark. Director Park Kwangsu is consistent in filming his movies with deep concern of political situations……