[HanCinema's Film Review] "A Blind River"

In this film, childbirth and the circumstances leading up to it are presented as terrifying. Giving a child up for adoption is pretty much the same thing as volunteering for permanent post traumatic stress disorder. And being a person that was once given up for adoption as a child can make a person really wishy-washy. Indeed, "A Blind River" is one of those kinds of films- where nothing particularly fun happens to anyone and the main purpose of any given scene appears to be to destroy the viewer's spirits.

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Very early on the movie subjects us to a scene where a girl consents to a certain surgical procedure, then spends the entirity of that procedure whimpering and mewling in abject terror. The scene is discomforting and alarming. It would fit right in to a propaganda video meant to encourage young girls to either use safe sex or not have sex at all. It's deliberate, forceful, and effective in conveying a sense of absolute discomfort.

So, what does this have to do with anything else that happens? Honestly I'm not at all sure. We've got this guy, who's upset because of the difficulties he's running into tracking down his birth parents. Then there's this hotel he goes to where the proprietor is a little messed up in the head. And all this means...something. I guess that being involved in anything even tangentially related to adoption means unhappy times for everybody?

That really is the best I can do. The film is a potpurri of tropes and events related to unwanted pregnancy, adoption, and regret, but all I could get out of any of it was just "bad things happen". No one can really be described as a distinct character here. They all just represent general archetypes having a bad day. Then their days get worse, for reasons that become increasingly contrived and idiotic.

An omnibus film on these subjects has the potential to be good, but "A Blind River" is simply not that film. After awhile it becomes difficult to ignore the poor production values. The low quality of the spoken English (and there's a lot of it) is acceptable initially but quickly becomes emblematic of a script that is equally clumsy. Who are any of these people, and what do they want? Redemption? Some kind of affirmation that they are, in fact, lovable? Why doesn't the movie show us that stuff instead of walking through the motions of increasingly weird and pointless psychological imagery?

I am unable to give birth to children, am not Korean, and was not adopted. On reflection I have to concede that it is possible someone fitting into one or more of those categories might find the proceedings here interesting. There's relatively little in this film that I can confidently call objectively bad. But as time wore on everything about this film just caused me to become more impatient. To some the ambiguities may hold some appeal. But speaking personally, "A Blind River" eventually just ends up becoming exhausting to watch and I do not recommend doing so.

Review by William Schwartz

"A Blind River" is directed by Ahn Sun-kyoung and features Park Ji-ah, Yoon Sang-hoon and Han Ye-ri.

 

Available on DVD from YESASIA