It may seem to many Western minds that Jin-ho Hur’s 1998 movie, Palwolui Christmas, or Christmas In August, plays out as a frustratingly slow and depressing movie. I could’ve given in to those feelings as well, but then I chose to look beyond my expectations of what constitutes love, a romance, a typical meeting between a man and woman who are falling in love, not in America but in South Korea. The intensity of the love between the lead players in this movie sneaks up on us as well as on them and wistfully draws us into one of the most shattering resolutions of a romance that has been captured before a camera.

Christmas In August reveals every bit of the sharply divided nature of her cast and crew’s country. It is much more than a tenderly-rendered love story. We realize that the thirty-ish man, a kind and good-looking bachelor who pines for a woman now married unhappily, must check into the hospital for medicine once in a while for he is dying. Of what is never discussed and he accepts his fate calmly and quietly as all Asians seem to do, though with a breaking heart.

When he meets a young, beautiful woman, a meter maid, in his photo shop and she keeps returning to have her photos of illegally-parked cars developed, the seeds of love are again planted in his sad heart. She miraculously finds him attractive and not boring like the guys more her age (young twenties), but while he longs for her sweet company at the shop to simply laugh with the joy of living, he hides the truth of his impending death and struggles to run with her across a meadow. He’s caught between the bliss of innocent, unspoken love where a kiss must remain a tortured fantasy and the painful horror of losing her and all who he loves in death.

The woman, though shy and unsure, cannot understand his reluctance to sweeten their relationship and flirts subtly with him, moving closer and closer to him on a park bench and wearing lipstick when he asks her twice to wet her lips for a photograph. She’s interested in his life and work as he is with hers. And then one day, after crying all night to the anguish of his father who lives with him, he’s taken to the hospital where he remains for some time. She waits for hours everyday outside his shop, bewildered.

I will stop there with the story so you can approach the ending of Palwolui Christmas with no expectations to tarnish what it will speak to you in your heart. Not much dialogue needs to be utilized in this movie which so gently immerses you with the fragility and preciousness of life, which illuminates in the end, without words, how connected with life is love. I wanted to be outraged with the movie. I didn’t want that ending, not at all, but it was a perfect summation of Jin-ho Hur’s South Korean vision for the movie. More, much more, could be said of how his vision bloomed through other, joyfully understated characters as well, but enough has been shared with you to understand it.

Suk-kyu Han and Eun-ha Shim gift us with natural, heartrending performances of the lead characters. I’ve never experienced them in other movies, but it appears that they are quite well-regarded in their country that only fairly recently chose to export their movies. I especially am interested in a movie they starred in after Christmas In August called Tell Me Something (Telmisseomding).

Finally a comment on where the title originates. Since the setting is a hot, exhausting one in the days of summer, I suspect that it calls Christmas to mind in the sense of discovering and nurturing love that makes life so worthwhile, even if it’s a holiday that cannot last in the same way. For a movie only 97 minutes long, this yearning flows so abundantly from the expression on the faces and in the soft eyes of the characters to cause you to look at your own life and who or what you’re taking for granted.

Hong Kong gives Palwolui Christmas a IIA and the U.K. a 12. A child would be bored stiff with it, as would an adult who prefers exaggerated shows of romance and witty, silly dialogue that Hollywood barrages us with. I find no flaw in a movie that honors our human frailties so beautifully. A big bravo to first-time (for a feature) director Jin-ho Hur!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD