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A Bit Different Take on Women's Desire

By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter

Director Gina Kim said her exploration of women's desire continues in her first melodrama movie, "Never Forever".

"Women's desire was at the center of all of my artwork (including video art, paintings and installations). This film is not an exception, although it has a very strong genre template because it's a melodrama", Kim said in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times.

Her new film _ a story about a Caucasian woman's affair with a Korean man _ also deals with other complex issues in the conventional but subversive and disturbing melodrama.

Kim may not be so familiar to the local audiences, but her previous experimental works, including "Gina Kim's Video Diary" (2002) and "Invisible Light" (2003), have been frequently presented and received well at international film festivals. Her new work will now be shown at the Sundance Film Festival, which kicked off last Thursday.

To deliver such a heavy theme through the light genre, Kim needed to create a very complex, even self-contradictory, female character.

"I had to put multiple layers of irony on Sophie's (the main female character) body. For example, self-sacrifice becomes self-fulfillment. A mother becomes a whore, and her body becomes language. She never talks, but for some reason, through her body language, through this very non-metaphysical, non-spiritual relationship, she finds her true self", Kim said.

The role was given to actress Vera Farmiga of "The Departed", whom Kim said was just perfect.

"I saw Vera first in `Down to the Bone', and I thought she was absolutely phenomenal. There are a lot of good actors and actresses around, but what I was looking for from my main actor was for her to become Sophie _ not act like Sophie. It's a very tall order to ask of your actor, but Vera pulled it off in `Down to the Bone"', Kim said.

In the film, Sophie is married to a successful Korean-American lawyer. But the couple can't conceive, and she starts a dangerous sexual relationship with a poor immigrant, Ji-hah (played by Ha Jung-woo), to have a baby and to save their marriage.

They have sex, and she pays him for it each time. But she starts to feel attached and starts to have doubts about her marriage. When she finds herself pregnant, their relationship takes an unexpected turn.

The film seems to have a high potential to appeal to not only local but also international audiences.

Kim received 400 million won from the Korean Film Council as part of the art film support program. In a strategic move designed to help the film tap the American market, "Never Forever" was made as a co-production between local production company Now Films and American Vox3 Films.

Kim said the co-production was not only different but also difficult.

"There was a lot to be compromised and translated, as the script had to satisfy both Korean and American producers and ultimately the audiences. I think English is a mandatory requirement for anyone who wants to work here and a willingness to adapt to the intricacies of the American market and the system, which isn't radically different from Korean one, but certainly a difference that does exist", Kim said.

But it is true that the movies that satisfy the tastes of international audiences often disappoint at the local box office. Examples can be found in works by directors Hong Sang-soo and Kim Ki-duk, who are internationally critically acclaimed but whose commercial performances have not equaled their international status.

"I think Korean domestic audiences react very well to melodramatic stories. Also, I'm so interested in seeing how they react to this explicit love between a Caucasian woman and an Asian man because we don't see that very often", Kim said.

The release date of the film in the U.S. and Korea has not been fixed. The detailed schedule will be announced after the Sundance, which ends this Sunday.

She is now writing two scripts _ one a horror film and the other a mystery drama or love story about an American soldier stationed in Korea and a Korean female police officer.

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