A character study whose style mirrors the push-and-pull of its protagonist, Return To Seoul (2022) follows a young French woman, Freddie (Park Ji-Min), who was adopted from South Korea. Visiting the home of her birth parents on a spur-of-the-moment deal, she also decides to track them down, and is completely unprepared for the emotional consequences. Freddie careens through life, continually pushing back at the developments of confronting her history and her identity. Director Davy Chou mixes aesthetics and tones – “chaotic” is a description I’ve read for both the lead and the film itself – and it shifts from plaintive observation, quiet and introspective, to confronting and hectic in sound, and then back again. Freddie’s interest in music is another avenue where all of this tonal variety is expressed, from piano barely heard in another room to punishing electronic music blasting in a club. I loved how Freddie, excellently portrayed by Park Ji-Min, is not super likeable at points, and can be hostile and rude depending on the situation she finds herself. This felt real to me, and where the film goes in tracking her life and her swinging emotional states, leads to scenes that are quietly unsettling or very moving. I was particularly caught off guard by one throwaway moment involving a phone that had me fighting back tears. Jérémie Arcache and Christophe Musset provide the music, which often sounds exactly like the building opening riff of Bauhaus’ ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, and there are wonderful scenes using pop songs, particularly for one of my favourite movie tropes, that of a character expressing their emotional state through a public display of dancing. I also loved the Roy Baty styled coat Freddie wears during the sequence set in Japan. Available to see at Perth Festival from 12 to 18 December. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 