A review of the Korean-set film “Return To Seoul”
This is a work that underlines the international nature of modern film production. It is set in South Korea and filmed there and in Romania. The story concerns a French-Korean woman but it is written and directed by a French-Cambodian man. The dialogue is in both French and Korean with some English. The funding is even more diverse. And it was the Cambodian entry for the Best International Feature Film at America’s Academy Awards. But the subject matter – the struggle for personal identity – is a universal theme and rightly the work has spoken to audiences around the world.Davy Chou was inspired to make the movie by the experience of his friend, a French-Korean adoptee called Laure Baoufle, who is credited at the end. The central role is taken by another French-Korean adoptee, but a young woman whose previous work has largely been as a visual artist and here makes her acting debut. It is a tour de force performance in which she is rarely off the screen and portrays a wide palette of emotions.
The film starts with the arrival in South Korea of Frédérique ‘Freddie’ Benoît in the bustling city of Seoul apparently “by accident”. Whether or not this was her original intention, she decides to try and connect with her biological parents, but will they want to see her after an interval of 25 years? If they do, how will they and she respond? The narrative jumps from a long ‘present’ section to two years later, then five years further on, and finally one year later. This eight-year period ought to be enough to clarify things but the ending is still enigmatic.
We are used to protagonists, perhaps especially young, female ones, being sympathetic characters, but Freddie by turns is amusing, engaging, irascible, manipulative and even cruel while always being insecure, confused and selfish. Yet her story – shot with cinematic flair and striking music – is never less than mesmerising.