"Soup and Ideology" Director Yang Yong-hee Depicts the moment when a mother's cooking transcends nation and ideology [Director's Interview Vol.213]

The meaning of conveying painful memories to others

Q: Immediately after the Jeju April 3rd Research Institute visited Japan and interviewed the mother about the Jeju April 3rd Incident, it was striking to see that her dementia progressed.

Yang: Some people at the research institute thought that my mother's dementia might have progressed because they listened too much to painful memories. But that's not the case, and I believe that my mother was liberated because she asked so much about it. It's only a short scene in the movie, but the people at the institute are all experts, so my mother talked for about three hours that day alone.

Q: I felt that you talked about the incident in considerable detail.

Yang: It's good to ask questions. ``There must have been a police station near the house where Omoni lived.The police officers at that police station were very vicious and famous,'' the laboratory staff said, and Omoni said, ``Ah, but there was only one police officer there.'' I would answer something like, ``I have a good person.''

“Soup and Ideology” (C) PLACE TO BE, Yang Yonghi

Q: You're good at retrieving memories, aren't you?

Yang: That's right. Also, when the people at the research institute ask questions that include the Jeju dialect, my mother's eyes change. When I was asked a question in the Jeju dialect, I got excited and said, ``Oh, that happened, that happened.'' After the interview ended that day, my mother seemed very comfortable.

Q: Your facial expressions also looked different than usual. Lively.

Yang: The only way you can say to someone who has had a painful experience, ``You can forget about it now,'' is when you have clearly communicated it to others, and the person you have communicated it to understands it, and you are able to convey it to the next person. hey. In other words, I thought that when I was able to ``get it across'' and confirm that I would ``tell it'' to the next person, I would feel relieved and freed from the painful memories. I think my mother was able to do that. The Day After a week later, my dementia started to progress and I started searching for my deceased father and my brothers who were supposed to be in North Korea.

A miraculous image captured by close contact