That was an excellent one.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Blistering performances.

This film made me laugh and cry (a lot). It touches beautifully on the reality of mortality and enduring love. It is, at times, heartbreaking to watch but so worth it. With their childlike joy and their closeness, even as their love story comes to a close, this lovely old couple demonstrate what true love is all about. I would highly recommend this movie.

A film for us from South Korea, nominated for a Palm d'Or at Cannes: My Love, Don't Cross That River. It's as if the camera lives next door to a couple that is very elderly and stops by to check on them from time to time, just to see how they are doing. At first they are both doing well. They play with each other like a pair of puppies. Gradually an illness takes hold of the man, and on each visit of the camera we see some loss. At the end, we sit a respectful distance from his wife, as she grieves her husband's death. This is in the style of "slow film," which means things happen at the speed of life, and all the "drama" is at the level of small everyday events which, in their slowness, unfold in a glorious way. A look. A touch. A cough. It's all the "drama" that the heart can bear. This film also has a unique position in the emerging style that blurs fiction and documentary.

This weekend I watched two movies. "The Revenant" of Leonardo DiCaprio and then this one. I was going to write a review for the Revenant but I think this one is more important. I watched it last night on RTSdeux in the original language with French subtitles. I missed the first 20 minutes of the movie. When I started watching, the man was singing a song to his wife and rubbing her knee. It came to me very interesting to watch the daily life of a very old Korean couple. After million-dollar artificial Hollywood movies, this was so natural, full of romance, love, grief and dread. Their house, dresses, beds, the nature and everything was so real. I am still in doubt whether this was a documentary or a movie. Did the director know the ending before? Or did he intentionally wait for certain events to occur in order to finish his documentary? It is too bad that there is not much info about this movie on IMDb.com, not even a poster. Whatever it is, as a whole this movie is extraordinary and praiseworthy.

'My Love, Don't Cross that River' is a film of two halves. We start at the film's inevitable conclusion, but are quickly moved into the story of life-ling married couple, Jo Byeong-man and Kang Kye-yeol. Married for seventy-six years, the pair now spend their days in and around their home, playing with their dogs and frolicking like little children in love. This documentary, without narration, watches them together as they go about their daily business, shopping, performing chores and having their many children and grandchildren visit. Director Jin Mo- young sets out to paint a picture of a couple very much in love, still after a whole lifetime together. However, with Byeong-man now approaching one-hundred years-old it is clear that their seventy-six years of married life are drawing to a close. The documentary soon switches from a joyful tale of love to a distressing piece on mortality and how all good things must come to an end. With his health deteriorating, Byeong-man can no longer perform his role as the man, confined to lying, coughing a spluttering, sharing final moments with his six surviving children. Kye-yeol, however, can only sit and watch, preparing herself for the inevitable, performing his last rites. We start off in bright and joyful mode, with an easy to watch story about an ageing couple. By the end, we are left with everyone in tears, with the final forty minutes a struggle to sit through as we watch a dying man in his last moments, while his wife and family come to terms with it, as all good things must come to an end. Without yang, there is no yin, without death, there is no life, without Byeong-man, there is no Kye-yeol. Jin's documentary has gone on to become the highest grossing independent film or documentary in Korean history, and it's not hard to see why. He lets the camera roll and the narrative come out naturally, in what could have easily become forced and lacking respect. 'My Love, Don't Cross that River' is, at times, uncomfortable viewing, but so is life, reminding us that with every up there must be a down.politic1983.blogspot.com