Can great artists be sane?

The director of Seopyeonje, Im, asserts that the film succeeds in giving voice to ‘han,’ a unique Korean cultural trait that denotes feeling of oppression and isolation (Stringer). Even though the narrative is emotionally charged with sorrow, I think ‘han’ is conveyed well through the repeated shots of nature. In fact, the film opens with a long shot of mountains and there are numerous scenes in extremely long shots of the three protagonists walking down the road with mountains as their backdrop. At one point, it even feels as if nature is a living entity. This is because the camera focuses on the audiences and their reaction every time a character sings, and when Song-Hwa sings towards the mountain with the camera behind her, it feels as though the mountains have become active listeners.

I think the sound and framing are used in an interesting way to foretell the narrative. I recognized one scene where, while it is filming in an extreme long shot of Song-Hwa and Yu-Bong walking down the road, the camera shifts forward to have only Yu-Bong in the frame. The next thing we know is that Yu-Bong purposefully feeds some medicine to Song-Hwa to make her go blind. Furthermore, when the calligrapher is in the middle of telling Dong-ho about Song-Hwa, her singing voice comes in. Her voice continues to the next scene where she is actually singing. The essayist Julian Stringer explains that the director employs sound in such a way, coalescing of scene and its sound, in order to visualize pansori. Thus, the sound becomes seen and the visual becomes heard.

One thing that nagged me while watching the film is the question of Yu-Bong’s sanity. I understand where he is coming from, his intention, and his passion, but I could not reconcile the fact that he makes his daughter Song-Hwa—even though they are not blood-related—blind so that she may perfect her art. I am so curious to know what makes him do what he does. For instance, why does he support Song-Hwa in every way when he himself is incapable of making a living, and is old and weak? How can we make sense of his passion for art when he willingly throws away himself, money, and even his pride? And my last question is, can one be sane and be insanely artistic at the same time?