The use of train/ railroad in "Peppermint Candy"

“Peppermint Candy” was Director Lee Chang-dong’s second film, and it certainly left a deep impression on audiences for its ability to portray huge themes and historical events through the troubled life of one man. The story is told in reverse chronology, and at the starting point of the film the audience is introduced to Young-ho as a man on the edge. 

The reverse-time structure of “Peppermint Candy” was different from the most of films. In general, directors use flashback to bring out the past time story. They go right to the beginning of the timeline and progress to the present. In “Peppermint Candy” the audience sees the story as it begins from the present and goes back to the starting point of the story by watching at short vignettes of Young-ho’s life. This unique technique makes the audience to the end of film to figure out the cause of Young-ho’s dramatic change. The tragic part is not revealed until the end of the film.

The use of train links the each episodes/ vignettes together.  In this film, the director Lee used seven different vignettes. To get to the next vignette, the train travels towards the past. The audience only sees the railroad with the non-dietetic background music. The director Lee Chang Dong uses railroad as a path to the past. It is where Young-ho tries to commit suicide. In the last vignette of “Peppermint Candy”, the 20 year-old Young-ho is very familiar with the whole setting. He feels as if he is been there before when he never visited that place. Due to the symmetry to the plot by ending the movie at the starting point made audience to re-think about the beginning to solve the puzzle.

Throughout the movie, the train was used frequently to connect Young-ho’s life. In Mahnan-Park’s reading he stated that “the multiple diegetic presence of trains and their inclusion within the film’s construction connotes a dual function”(Magnan-Park 162). One question remains after seeing this film three times and reading the related article. Why did the director Lee choose ‘the train’ as the connecting source of Young-ho’s life? Why did it have to be the train? Why did Young-ho have to get up on the bridge where there was a rail road?