The beauty of Pansori: Han

This extremely ethnic Korean movie, Seopyeonjae, was a beautiful representation of the struggle that pansori singers experienced as they strove to survive in the modern world that has been heavily influenced by westernization. Im’s frequent longshots of the landscape truly depicted the beautiful scenery of the Korean field. The long take scene where the three main characters walk slowly and happily in the huge field singing arirang, carries a deep meaning and implication of the lives of the pansori singers. Although they are itinerants who struggle to even afford a meal, we can see that they are truly happy when they sing. Personally, I thought their singing represented South Korea’s attitude where even through constant foreign attempts to colonize Korea and the plight that Koreans faced, or had to face this situation with hope.
According to Stringer’s article, Im chooses to shut off all diegetic sound, compelling his characters to be mute, which Stringer with many other fellow critiques felt cheated by the scene, since there was such a heavy emphasis on the ‘han’ and the genuine sound of pansori, earlier in the film. However, I thought that the director put in the diegetic sound , since he thought that the true pansori of Songhwa would not be able to fully deliver what Songhwa has gone through. Thhe director wanted to provide the audience more time to ponder about how hard of a time Songhwa went through, instead of directly judging the improvement of her pandora as she gained more Han through her hardships.
Halfway through the film, Songhwa becomes blind. I thought the reason was not only because Youbong didn’t want  her to run away like dongho and allow her carry the true sound of pansori with deep han, but also to reduce the sexual harassment and other men’s sexual desires toward Songhwa when she was performing pansori.  Also, the story’s correlance to Shimchungee and the intensity of the climactic scene almost allowed me to think that Songhwa would be able to see again, but realized that this movie is more of a ethnic Korean movie that depicts the more of a realistic world than a fairy tale.
Overall, seopyeonjae was a great film and that represented Korean culture and history along with representations of the pansies singers during the westernization period when many Korean cultures became less popular.