YONHAP NEWS

(Movie Review) Slow and colorless, 'Dying' deserves credit for experimental approach

By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, June 24 (Yonhap) -- Its plot is bleak, its pace is meandering. Still, "Something to do Before Dying" makes a worthy attempt to break the mold, with its tragic heroine dominating the film's full 83 minutes -- eating, talking and mourning all by herself.

   Whether that's a sufficiently redeeming quality is another question.

   Su-yeon (Namgung Eun-suk) is an ordinary 20-something Seoulite who decides to end her humdrum life one day, and begins to search for the "easiest and least painful" way to die.

   She scours the Internet for advice, visits pharmacies to collect sleeping pills and sits at a neighborhood playground murmuring to herself. She calls up friends and family members with whom it appears she hasn't spoke in a long while, offering them her belongings and telling them she loves them.

The film tracks each of these steps, slowly, without nuance, dragging the audience along for a one-person-show. Darkly, it offers little more than subtle indications about the value of choosing life over death -- a subject that feels especially timely following the suicides of former President Roh Moo-hyun and several high-profile Korean celebrities.

Roaming around her neighborhood late one night, Su-yeon wonders what people will think of her after she is gone and worries what will happen at work without her, but manages to wash up and prepare a nice meal for herself. These are the kind of everyday actions that will simply be forgotten, she observes, once she is dead.

As she sighs that no one is waiting for her at home, the camera shifts to a shot of Su-yeon's puppy staring longingly at the door in her dark house. Feeding her pets and taking pictures of herself, she wonders whether it would be a waste to "die so young."

   Despite the film's overall disappointing outcome, director Park Sung-bum deserves credit for having the guts to cast a little-known actress as his only heroine, especially with transforming robots and terminators from Hollywood expected to dominate local screens in the coming weeks.

   Park's decision to create such a somber film may come as a surprise for moviegoers who saw his first feature "My Girls Boy (2007)," a bouncy comedy that featured romance, sex and jealousy.

   In an earlier interview with a local monthly film magazine, the 39-year-old said he had wanted to talk about "something (suicide) people may have thought about at least once" in their lives in the most "bold and honest manner." Park, who is currently staying overseas according to distributors, did not make it to the preview of his second feature Tuesday night.

"Something…" will open nationwide July 9 at both on-line and off-line theaters. Its distributor, Emotion Contents Network, has made agreements with some 60 domestic Web sites to offer the film on the Internet.

hayney@yna.co.kr
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