In the film Peppermint candy, the themes of the inner and outer spaces play a very crucial role. First, there are places inside and outside of the tunnel. The opening credit begins with the camera inside the tunnel that eventually comes out. Second, there are locations inside and outside of the camera frame. After the inter-title that says “Prayer 1984”, we see Hong Ja entering the frame from the right side with a bike. Third, there are areas inside and outside of the car. When Yong-ho is in the car trying to shoot himself in the head, the camera is situated outside of the car. It cuts back and forth from being inside to outside of the car. Fourth, there are interior (soft and romantic) and exterior (violent and brutal) sides of Yong-ho that is well-expressed through the usage of a mirror. For instance, when Yong-ho tells an underage prostitute to go home, he has a mirror in front of him. Thus, there is a definite feeling that he is talking to himself as well as to the girl. What I mean by the mirror to represent Yong-ho’s interiority is that when Yong-ho and Hong-Ja are in bed to have sex, we see a mirror with cracks on their headboard. I think that it could possibly signify his broken interiority.
According to Nelson, despite the material comfort South Koreans experience in the late 1990s, there is a sense of longing for the past or the Korean identity: “some people revel in new freedoms and new amenities, while others are concerned about lost traditions; some have not yet had the good fortune to experience many of these benefits themselves.” Nostalgia is expressed through the motif of train in the film that is present in almost every scene. For instance, when Young-ho is having sex in the car with a colleague, a train passes by. When Yong-ho and his team catch a culprit, there is a train passing by. Sun mi takes the train when she leaves and Yong-ho accidently shoots a girl beside the train tracks. In fact, the film takes place in a reverse-chronological fashion where the train plays an important role. Whenever there is a train scene, it creates a feeling that the viewers are literally on the train being transferred back to the past. This is due to the fact that at one of the train sequence, there are two kids and an adult who are walking backward, meaning that the train is going the opposite direction.
I have one unresolved question which is the meaning of the ending scene in relation to the opening scene. In both scenes, Yong-ho is lying underneath the train track bridge with tears in his eyes, looking heavenward. Can this mean that the past and the present are alike and thus there is no hope?
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