Spoiler Alert if you haven't watched ep 8 yet.
In the scene where Cha Su Yeol rescues his mom out from the burning fire of the church. She wakes up and gasps for air. She's a little disoriented and looks around for a minute and sees her son. At first, she cracks a small smile but then slowly, her faces twists and contorts into pain and anguish. She half-heartedly hits him as she sobs with a torturous wail. Grabbing hold of him, she aggressively shakes him as she cries. She finally pushes him away and looks past him as her sorrows deepen. We watch the church continue to burn carried by her agony.
Cuts to black.
I wanted to share what I thought she was experiencing in that scene because it felt really visceral to me, it was all emotion and no words. I'm curious to see how others saw or interpreted that scene.
I believe that she smiled at him because she was a little happy that her son rescued her. But, realization set in and her reality rained down on her like a ton of bricks. She was alive. She fully intended to kill her father and herself in that church. She was tired of living. She was tired of everything and just wanted it all to stop.
The misery of still being alive and the small joy that her son cared about her, swirled chaotically inside her. She still didn't want to live anymore, she wanted to die but now she can't die because her son showed he cared enough to save her. When she shook him, it was kind of like watching a child throwing a tantrum. Even though she didn't say anything, her expression screamed "Why did you rescue me?! Why did you keep me alive? Why didn't you just leave me there to die?"
When she looks past him and continues to sob, it's almost in a defeated way. When she was in the church while it burned, I imagined she probably felt some kind of peace because it was all going to end soon. But when she woke up again, alive, the thought having to carry all that pain again, ruined her. She held that pain her entire life and at the moment she decided to die, she was finally able to let go of it. Now that she found out she's alive again, she has to pick it back up and live.
Imagine you have to hold a 10lb rock for 10 years. 10lbs is not really a lot of weight. It's like a small toy dog, or a gallon of water, or a basket full of laundry. It's not really that heavy, at first, but imagine having to hold that 10lbs for 24 hours, 7 days a week, 12 months, for 10 years straight. You have to hold it while you walk, run, climb, eat, go to the bathroom, take a shower, and sleep. For 10 years. And you are not allowed to drop it. EVER.
Then imagine, after 10 years of holding onto that 10lb rock, you're FINALLY allowed to drop it and let go. All of a sudden, you feel relief wash over you. You feel so much lighter and you also feel so much freer. You're FINALLY able to live one day of not having to hold that 10lb rock. You can finally walk, eat and sleep without holding that damn rock anymore. But then, the next day, you're told you have to hold that 10lb rock again. For another 10 years. I think that's what she experienced. The torture of having to live with that pain again because she's still alive.
What thoughts do you have? What do you think? What did you see?
