Who is happy here? /Emotion

Seopyeonje is a dramatic 1993 film that follows a family of Pansori players and their efforts to keep (or abandon) their Pansori tradition.

I was so confused as to how to feel throughout the whole film. The daughter, Songwha, seems to be having an identity crisis throughout the film. Pansori, which dominates her, her brother's, and her father's lives, seems to have an interesting effect on her. One moment she looks lonely and miserable and may be physically straining herself to perform; the next moment she will proclaim convincingly that she wants to master Pansori. What does she actually feel? Her true feelings seem potentially manipulated by her father; what is filial piety, what is guilt, and what is actual desire for Songwha? Is there really any distinction between these three motives for her love-hate relationship with the music? 

I read something that suggested her father's role was extremely important in a determined patriarchal sense--some people read it as Youbong asserting his patriarchal conrol by limiting her sexuality (and her eye site, meals, activities, place in space, etc...). Sympathy was difficult in this domain as well--in the beginning I had really come to sympathise with Youbong in the brief scenes of his earlier life. 

Also, one of the most obvious emotions is the theme of grief. In the end Songwha does not want to acknowledge her brother's presence with words because this would alter her state of grief. It is interesting how grief is used as a tool to better the music--but at the same time, the music is somehow supposed to transcend emotion. At the same time, Songwha and her brother Dongho know who the other is, despite Songwha being blind--so what is most important here? As long as they have acknowledged each other's presences mentally and shared a last song together, does it really matter that they did not verbally acknowledge the other?

It seemed like a very grim movie, but there is also a lot of ambiguity in the emotion that could be interpreted in many different ways. With such complex characters and relatively little dialogue, it is difficult to truly tell how each character felt throughout the film....