Spring in My Hometown (1998)

Director: Lee Kwangmo

The story of two 13-year-old boys in a small country village during the last days of the Korean War. Sungmin's father gets a job at the US army camp through his daughter's American boyfriend, and the family gets richer. But Changhee's father has been long-lost and his mother can't even afford one meal a day for her children. One day, the boys peep into a deserted mill-house which is unofficially used for prostitution, and find Changhee's mother with a GI soldier. Changhee sets fire to the place and runs away. Months later, Sungmin hears a rumor that his best friend has been killed by a group of angry American soldiers and makes an empty grave with other boys. A year later, Sungmin's father gets fired for stealing things from the camp. Sangmin goes to Changhee's grave to bid farewell and the family leaves the village.

This feature, by first-time director and screenwriter Lee Kwangmo, was the most critically acclaimed film of the year. An incomplete version of the film was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, and later in the year it won the Gold Prize for new directors at the Tokyo Film Festival. It generated much praise upon its release, and at the end of the year was placed at the top of most film critics' lists of the year's best features.

Spring in My Hometown The film took thirteen years to make. Lee Kwangmo began writing the screenplay in memory of his father, who died while Lee was studying in the U.S. After much work and revision it won first prize in the 1995 Hartley-Merrill International Screenwriting Competition.

Spring takes place during the Korean War, in a small village located outside of the range of fighting. Rather than concentrate on the war itself, the director examines the life of the village as it is affected by the close proximity of an American military base and the increasing worry and hardships brought on by the distant fighting. We see much of the film through the perspective of two young boys.

Stylistically, the film is constructed with a great deal of care and restraint. It is shot with fixed camera angles, typically from a distance, and makes extensive use of the long take. This not only gives us time to appreciate the composition of each shot, but the cumulative effect is to make us feel like a slightly removed, but active observer of the events in the film.

Spring in My Hometown is well worth seeing. It conveys with feeling and power the heartbreaking changes that took place during the war, and moves us to reflect on the vulnerability of life during such times.

Darcy Paquet, www.koreanfilm.org

IMDB

Awards:
Wins
- Entrevues Film Festival (1998): Grand Prix Foreign Film (Lee Kwangmo)
- Hawaii International Film Festival (1998): Best Feature Film (Lee Kwangmo)
- Pusan International Film Festival (1998): FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention (Lee Kwangmo) "For the director's mature approach to the consequences of recent Korean history on common people's lives."
- Thessaloniki Film Festival (1998): Special Artistic Achievement (Lee Kwangmo)
- Tokyo International Film Festival (1998): Gold Award (Lee Kwangmo)
- Fribourg International Film Festival (1999): Don Quixote Award (Lee Kwangmo)
- Grand Bell Awards (1999): Best Film
- Kerala International Film Festival (1999): Special Jury Prize (Lee Kwangmo)

Nominations
- Stockholm Film Festival (1998): Bronze Horse (Lee Kwangmo)
- Thessaloniki Film Festival (1998): Golden Alexander (Lee Kwangmo)



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