Shines

The fragility of life and our innate survival instincts never juxtapose more than in the aftermath of unexpected tragedy. And when they collide, nothing is the same. Such is Sin-ae’s heartbreaking fate; Secret Sunshine, the new film by South Korean director Lee Chang-dong, is her story.

Secret Sunshine screened at the Time Warner Center on Monday and Tuesday this week as a part of the New York Film Festival (Sept. 28-Oct. 14). The film stars actress Jeon Do-yeon as the endearing and deeply troubled Shin-ae, a recently widowed woman who decides to move herself and her five-year-old son, Jun, from Seoul to Milyang, her dead husband’s hometown. There, she opens a piano school and enrolls Jun in school, and life is almost normal.

But tragedy finds Shin-ae in Milyang too, and her life once again becomes unrecognizable. She continues on, fumbling and absorbed, unaware of the secret sunshine (the literal translation of the name of the town) that Lee weaves adeptly through the film. Gentle humor, well-intentioned friends and neighbors, and a bit of fun poking at the institution of Christianity—it’s life, unstoppable.

Jeon deservingly took home the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year for her incredible performance, but Secret Sunshine’s success is the net effect of countless deserving performances both on and off the screen. I could not conclude this review without mentioning Song Kang-ho, who plays a jovial, kind-of-nerdy auto mechanic madly in love with Shin-ae—he stands by her patiently, an unfaltering friend—to perfection.