Writer and Director: Park Kun-young
When a poet comes to live with single father Jin-woo on a farm in rural South Korea there’s little speculation from the neighbours. The poet is young and affable and soon runs poetry workshops for the village. It’s when another stranger arrives that Jin-woo’s reputation is in jeopardy. A Distance Place is a bleak but beautiful examination of queer families.
It is perpetually autumn in Park Kun-young’s film. Trees are spectacularly yellow on the steep hillsides and mustards and honeys creep into interior shots of the homestead where Jin-woo works quietly for his landlord, himself a single father too. The landlord’s daughter is in her early 20s and spends time looking after her grandmother, suffering from dementia, and Seol, Jin-woo’s young daughter. However, without a real mother Seol calls her father ‘mommy.’
When the poet, Hyun-min, arrives, he brings with him a new history about Jin-woo. The landlord and his family are amazed that Jin-woo once studied fine art and painted. The poet fits nicely into the family although the landlord’s daughter is disappointed that any relationship with Jin-woo is now out of the question. Life for everyone continues as normal.
But when the other stranger arrives – a woman claiming to be Jin-woo’s twin – their quiet life is threatened. People go missing and a ghost haunts the fields where the sheep endlessly graze. But despite these dramas Park Kun-young’s film is not dramatic with the distance in the title deliberating extending to the audience and the screen. The camera remains stationary, filming the main actors from afar. The story is sometimes opaque and there is no character that acts as a go-between between the film and the viewer.
It may be cold, but there are moments of heat that appear like the dying rays of an Indian summer sun; the two men doze in bed, the women bathe in a tin tub, the poet enthrals his students. These scenes pull in the viewer despite the fact that most characters remain ciphers. Kang Gil-woo as Jin-woo is mostly blank, adding more distance to the film. Even Kim Si-ha who plays young Seol remains fairly enigmatic. At first it seems as if Hong Kyung as Hyun-min will provide the way into the film, but the camera never gets close enough to read him and his emotions. This cool aesthetic ensures that A Distance Place is riveting stuff.
But despite its queerness, and strangeness, this brave, formal film ultimately tells a reactionary story. Park Kun-young’s film is not a celebration, but an examination of life.
A Distant Place is screening at BFI Flare 2022.
