Double longing: the return home in South Korean women's documentaries

Choe, Youngmin

doi:10.1080/17564905.2015.1087148

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…In the context of South Korea, the theme or trajectory of homecoming prevails across both documentary and fiction films. Youngmin Choe (2015) examines contemporary Korean documentaries such as Faces of Seoul (Seouleui eolgul, Gina Kim, 2009), Home from Home (Endstation der Sehnsüchte/Dokil Maeul, Cho Sung-hyung, 2008) and Border City (Gyeonggye dosi, Hong Hyung-sook, 2002), all of which are directed by women filmmakers; in particular, Choe pays attention to the extent to which this spatial trajectory and temporal return complicates, and helps to reconfigure, the idea of nostalgia. The latest example of female homecoming could be found in the Hong Kong film, The Lady Improper (Fei fen shu nü, Tsang Tsui-shan, 2019); the female lead, Siu Man, after her divorce, returns home to the restaurant, which has been run by her chef father.…”

Section: Homecoming: 'Serving the Self'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Home is where the kitchen is: Rinco’s Restaurant (2009) and Little Forest (2014, 2018)1

Choi

2020

Asian Cinema

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The kitchen has become a prominent trope in East Asian cinema, the narratives of which revolve around the homecoming of female protagonists: Rinco’s Restaurant (2009) and Little Forest (2014, 2018). In part due to the fact that the films are adaptations of different media – novel and manga, respectively – and in part motivated by their narrative and style – the female protagonist’s loss of voice in Rinco’s Restaurant and the less frequent recourse to the verbal to express taste in these works – the audience is challenged to imagine the taste of, and pleasure in consuming, food, conveyed through only a limited set of sensorial modes. I focus on the transformative aspect of divergent modes of media storytelling in these films and their original source texts, and further argue that the kitchen becomes a ‘choric’ space for female protagonists where the relationship between mother and daughter is reconfigured in order to reinvent themselves.

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Section: Homecoming: 'Serving the Self'mentioning

confidence: 99%