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Gaetmaeul (Kim Soo-Yong, 1965, South Korea)
Topic Started: Jun 15 2015, 04:19 PM (236 Views)
Mauries
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g legs' sweetheart
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Geatmaeul (Kim Soo-Yong, 1965, South Korea)

As the sea mostly kills men, that means many women are left behind. The main reason why I chose Gaetmaeul to represent THE KILLING SEA, is that most films about the cruel salty water are about the men on the sea. Gaetmaeul (also: Seaside Village or Seashore Village) is about the life in a village inhabited by a small community of people that live from the sea; and although this film is made in South Korea in 1965 it is surprisingly feminin and feminist. First of all in it’s point of view: the film is about the women that are left behind as widows because the men die on dangerous fishing trips. The most important issues that are dealt with in the film are about these women: do they manage to survive alone? What about the sexual desires of these women, and do they want a new man after a while?
The answers to these questions as represented in this film are very modern considering the time and society in which it was made: the widows work hard to make their own living, they help each other out, and discuss the men in the village that are still available. And they don’t mourn too long about their dead husbands, but they even encourage each other to have sexual affairs with new men – even without marrying them (in any other film from South Korea from that time, that would have been morally incorrupt). And it gets even more progressive: the film contains a mock lesbian make-out scene. And although it’s not ‘serious’, it surprised me that the other widows are shouting encouraging things to the kissing women.

And let’s not forget: besides the sexual openess and the progressive female point of view, the film has a beautiful cinematography in stunning black and white, and also deals with many other interesting subjects like the life and gossip in small villages and leaving a small community, religion and superstition, the relationship between a person and the sea, the relationship between a person and the place one grew up in, and the way that (horny) men treat women.
You can watch the film on the Youtube channel of the Korean Film Archive. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

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Edited by Mauries, Jun 16 2015, 03:53 PM.
The Economy stinks, bees are dying, and movies are pretty much all sequels now
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Lencho of the Apes
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Let's go do some crimes
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Good write-up, M.! You've said just about everything that stood out for me while watching, except that I felt like I noticed a good bit more lesbian frisson than just that one scene.

Also... I'll grant that the code of sexual conduct displayed here is looser than anything you'd see in other Korean movies of the time. Probably nothing else out there that compares to it in that respect... BUT... I also had the feeling that the uninhibited easiness of all the townsfolk, m and f alike, could be related to their low socioeconomic status; as you climb the status ladder, the rules get more stringent and inhibitive. Don't forget how many people here dreamed of getting a little money together and moving to the city to live like normal people...
"The four cardinal points of the compass? In reality, there are only three: North and South."
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wba
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The Merciless
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I love this film! Was surprised and glad you chose it. :toast:
To please the majority is the requirement of the Planet Cinema. As far as I'm concerned, I don't make a concession to viewers, these victims of life, who think that a film is made only for their enjoyment, and who know nothing about their own existence.

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