after he wakes up in the hospital, his friends worry at various times that he will attempt suicide again (including a scene early in episode 7) - so it's basically implied that he had attempted suicide in episode 4
The main lead (Yeong) does not die during this series; and his main romantic interest (Gyu-ho) does not die during this series. Two important named characters die off-screen. Here are the death-related events in the series (heavy spoilers below, of course): - Abortion: At the start of episode 2 the main lead supports his best friend as she navigates the process of getting an abortion. The actual abortion procedure is not shown. - Death of an ex: In the second half of episode 2 there's an off-screen death of a character whom the main lead had dated in episode 1. The drama shows the main lead attending the funeral and grieving. - Death of a family member: At the start of episode 3 the main lead learns that his mother has cancer. Episodes 3 and 4 show how the relationship between these two characters evolves as the mother's health gradually worsens. Episode 4 ends by showing the two characters sitting and talking outside, and then episode 5 begins by showing the funeral of the main lead's mother. - Attempted suicide: In the second half of episode 4, the main lead attempts to die by suicide after a messy end to a relationship. He then wakes up in the hospital.
If you want to stop on a happy note in the main character's romantic life, you can stop at the end of episode…
Yes, I think the show will be more enjoyable if you save it for a future time when you're ready for an emotional rollercoaster! It sounds like you're experiencing a rough time, and (as someone who's also been going through a bit of extra emotional turbulence the past few years) I hope you'll make it through with tenderness for yourself! As a small silver lining, I think living through such experiences can help improve our future appreciation of films and dramas like this one :)
okay so someone please be kind and let me know if its a happy ending? happy ending as in the leads end up together…
If you want to stop on a happy note in the main character's romantic life, you can stop at the end of episode 5, which finishes with Yeong and Gyuho agreeing to start a relationship, in a really heart-warming way. In terms of where the plot feels emotionally at this point, I would compare it to how I Told Sunset About You ends, before I Promised You The Moon looks at what happens next in the relationship - so I think you can treat ep 5 as a "happy ending" for the series.
I think a major theme of this drama is the idea that nothing in life lasts forever, and chasing after certain ideals about how we think life "should" be tends to distract us from appreciating and feeling gratitude for what we have in the present. The series depicts how people who matter to us will eventually die, or else they will leave; new people will come into our lives; our relationships with family members will change, and they can change for the better; our friendships will change; where we live will change; etc. I personally felt the film's depiction of how the characters experienced these things resonates a lot with the Buddhist concept of duḥkha (suffering). So you're not going to get a "happy forever" or "sad forever" ending here, it's more like a "living life" ending-which-continues-past-the-ending.
To explain in more detail: the final episode ends with the main lead enjoying fireworks (which is an especially impermanent thing) and happily celebrating friendship together with three of his gay friends, who are all roughly single again at the same time for the first time in a decade. These friends are together and support each other throughout the whole series, so you could see it as a "friendship forever" ending. On the other hand, the main lead's romantic life is left open-ended & bittersweet: the relationship between Yeong and Gyu-ho has ended for a year, but there's also a possibility of restarting it in the future. The main lead writes that his romantic relationships have all ended in failure so far; but the series shows us that life can go on even when things don't go our way, and we can always appreciate what we do have. Visually, this is reflected in how the film ends by showing a flashback memory of the main character being disappointed while watching (together with Gyu-ho) his wish on a lantern fall out of the sky, and then transitioning to the main character in the present-day happily watching fireworks in the sky with his frieinds.
omg @ all the emotional whiplashes between ep 3 and ep 4, this series is so real for that 😭 (for maximum effect, I strongly recommend watching both episodes in one sitting)
"When people age, they might say things like they don't want to celebrate birthdays. but throughout human history, people have died in chaos due to hunger, war, and epidemics. This year, we managed survive another year. Isn't that reason enough to celebrate?" I never celebrated my birthdays seriously after childhood, but this reframes everything...season 2 hits so damn hard 😭
A few notes: - There are some truly stunning images here. - The narrative is very much one of vibes, atmosphere, and subtle allusion - like Kim Kyung Mook's "Stateless Things", but even more so. - This film comes in three versions: one with Korean voiceovers, one with Hebrew voiceovers, and one with English voiceovers; all three versions can be rented together at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thecage2017 . I personally disliked the English voiceover version's voice acting, which really did not work for me. However, there's significantly more narration (from Nick/Samson's perspective) in the English version which makes the story easier to understand; there's a different soundtrack (e.g. in the use of music and Foley sounds); and there's even an extra sequence, a very surreal interlude called "Good Friends" which significantly shifted my understanding of the film. So you're basically getting different films depending on your choice of voiceover language. - The most striking visual motif I saw was the black-and-white stripes, which also extends to stripes/bars/cages in other forms. I think this is meant to connect to the film's theme of borders and trappedness. - In general, filming locations in Taiwan were used for Lichtenberg City (inspired by Berlin) while filming locations in South Korea were used for Eskalon (inspired by Ashkelon). - I was surprised to see a cameo from Jason Tauh (who I first saw in Red Balloon) here.
Watching this was like a fever dream. I think I'm missing a lot of social+historical context needed to understand this film more clearly...but based on the name of the store owner (Chun Doo-hwan), the historical clips in the soundtrack, and the opening quotation from dictator Park Chung-hee who had preceded former dictator Chun Doo-hwan, I'm guessing the owner of the store is an allusion to South Korea's political rulers. I wonder if the events at the end (the looting, suicide, property seizure/debt collection, and the fight between government and business) are also a commentary on the 1997 Asian financial crisis?
Returning to the opening quotation after having watched this film, I think this film is trying to critique nationalistic narratives of progress and modernization and the dehumanization of people which accompanies those narratives. There's also an interesting depiction of how people marginalized by society might connect with each other - along those lines, the quiet humanity in the interaction between the fired worker and the mother of the store's owner stands out to me.
the only emotion this movie evoked out of me was anger.edit: this review (with spoilers) explains why i gave this…
I agree with your linked review that this film ends on a sour note; I think that's actually part of a critique/exploration the film is making about the ways social structures & cultural customs/pressures coercively harm people, e.g. with (in addition to what you had pointed out about sexual assault): - Wei-wei being a poor immigrant who needs a home and a green card to stay in the US as an artist, and Wai-tung being her landlord (power dynamics across class inequalities in the Chinese diaspora, particularly in the context of US immigration policy). - The mother guilting/manipulating Wai-tung into going through with a big wedding banquet by projecting her disappointment onto Wei-wei - The wedding attendees carrying out all the wedding-night traditions (e.g. making the couple get naked), and making Wai-tung perform the role of a heterosexual man - The mother basically guilting Wei-wei into sacrificing the freedom she previously had (and could've maintained with an abortion, which had been her initial intention before talking to the mother) - Wei-wei's social horizon is now circumscribed in the direction of "womb for a man's parents, and future caregiver for their grandchild" (though to be fair, she hasn't given up all of her agency), and she'll probably struggle to maintain her career as a painter without having her parents (who can't come) or her in-laws (who could, but probably won't come) around to help raise the kid - The mother using Wei-wei to guilt Wai-tung into continuing to perform a lie; Wai-tung is accepted only as far as he can perform to his mother's idealized image of the son she wants to have. - The father refusing to tell Wai-tung he accepts him, instead manipulating Simon via a gesture of acceptance (the red envelope) conditioned on Simon's complicity in the father's attempt to manipulate Wai-tung to maintain his performance of a heteronormative child. So now Simon has to perform a lie after Wai-tung's coming-out. Now that he has extremely conditional love/acceptance from the parent's generation, he's truly become part of a traditional-values Chinese family lol (yes, I have some personal resentment against my own parents for how they embodied this)
In the last scene of the film, all the relationships are left in a mess because of patriarchy, the younger generation regrets (and suffers from) the sham-marriage plan they had made to please the parents, and everybody's still unhappy except the dad who's totally cool with how everything turned out. I think anger is an emotion the film is (very successfully) constructed to evoke in you, given all the violence it shows being inflicted on everyone in the younger generation by the heteropatriarchal social structures which are regulating their choices, and given the unhappiness of the characters at the end. By the end, each of the three younger adults ends up looking like a not-so-great person as the final consequence of their initial seemingly harmless decision to compromise themselves in order to please the older generation via staging a fake marriage.
Anyways, yeah the mydramalist tags list for this film needs to have sexual assault added.
as A Gay, I watched this expecting to have zero erotic enjoyment...but that scene where sook hee wrecks the uncle's library? seeing all those books get defaced felt cathartic in a very physical way
notes: - I really like that the producers forced people to mix up a bit more for the ep 9 dates - seungjin sprawled out on the couch like a cat while the others are gathered watching a video of him dancing (relatable) - the background audio of screams from people on amusement park rides while jaeseung and youngjoon are having their calm conversation (and in particular while jaeseung and youngjoon are comparing days 3 and 4 to a rollercoaster) hahahaha - I really like how jaeseung talked with youngjoon about the youngjoon/myeongkyun conflict, and what seungjin said to hwi after the hwi/seongmin conversation - oof not jaeseung assigned to be fifth wheel next episode; I feel skeptical of this change the producers made with the two-mailbox matching system, but I guess it's basically a callback to the way they assigned the first-meeting group dates in ep 1. - I'm really curious to see how seungjin & hwi's friendship evolves next week...will we get a nearly fully-connected love square (where the only missing line is seungjin/seongmin)? straight dating shows could never
Some notes on my application of Scott McCloud's "classicist"/"animist"/"iconoclast"/"formalist" taxonomy to these films:
- In https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2011/feature-articles/on-the-uses-and-misuses-of-cinema/, Tsai Ming-liang says: "This is what got me into thinking about what is film, and what is imagery. When the plot is not perfectly and completely constructed, that is, when the main purpose of the movie is not to tell a story and there is no famous star involved, things are different. Under such plain and ordinary circumstances, you suddenly come to realize the true meaning of cinema. And that is exactly what I expect my own work to be. The storyline might be plain, but it is meant to carry the power of imagery, so as to reveal the essence of cinema." I think this attitude describes the key difference between the "animist" camp of filmmaking - where the the main purpose of the film is to tell a story - and the other camps (but maybe especially the "classicist" camp). - So my main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "animist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in telling a clear story which people connect to on an emotional level. I evaluate the greatness of animist films by how powerful the story is, by how engaging the story and narrative ideas are, and by how much I can emotionally connect with the story as a viewer. I also try to consider concerns of "classicist" and "iconoclast" camps: how aesthetically pleasing is the film, and how honestly does the story reflect real life? - My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "classicist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in applying/refining existing filmmaking techniques to craft something aesthetically pleasing. I would evaluate the greatness of classicist films by how beautiful they are, and how effectively they use their techniques. I also try to consider concerns of the "animist" and "formalist" camps: how interesting are the film's aesthetic/formal choices, how do those choices connect to the meaning/ideas of the film, and how emotionally resonant is the film's story? - My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "formalist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in experimenting and innovating with the form and techniques of filmmaking. I would evaluate the greatness of formalist films by how interesting their formal experimentation is - both when they were released, and today - and by how much it explodes my understanding of what film can be as a medium. I also try to consider concerns of the "classicist" and "iconoclast" camps: how aesthetically pleasing is the film, and how effectively does the film's formal experimentation relate to ideas which the film wants to express about real life, and how honestly do those ideas reflect real life? - My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "iconoclast" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in expressing a deeper truth about [art and] life against the accepted artifices/conventions/narratives/pretensions of cinema. I would evaluate the greatness of iconoclast films by how effectively they challenge the traditional relationships between films and life - including for the time of their initial release, but even more for a present-day viewer - and by how interesting and "real" (with respect to real life) their ideas are. I also try to consider concerns of the "animist" and "formalist" camps: how does the film challenge established filmmaking conventions to express something about the deeper truths it intends to present, and how emotionally resonant are those truths?
My classification of films into this taxonomy is meant primarily as a shorthand for the primary mindset which I think is most appropriate to use for experiencing each film and for seeing the greatness of each film.
Ever since I watched one of my first BL dramas maybe five years ago - which was HIStory 2: Crossing the Line - a question has lingered in my head: how might I have turned out if my parents, instead of having us return from Beijing to the US when I was five and setting me on the path to becoming a lonely and isolated gay chinese-american teenager in Michigan, had chosen for me to grow up in Asia instead? And after watching "Everything Everywhere All At Once" (my all-time favorite film) I longed for the same concepts and themes in EEAAO to be explored in a film about a queer main character. "So Long, See You Tomorrow" does exactly that, and in such a powerful way.
I've been haunted over the past 25 years by my loss of the person who had been the most important person in my universe - the nanny who had taken care of me in Beijing but remained there when my parents and I left to return to the US. Almost all of my happy memories from that time involved her, and she was the one who tried to comfort and protect me when I was scared of my parents' anger or of my nightmares. Losing her meant losing the one adult I had felt safe with at home, and I've struggled with thoughts of wanting to die ever since then. It's taken ten years for me to realize that my deepest dream is to find her again; to be a healthy, happy, and courageous [queer] self in front of her; and to take care of her as she grows old. But I don't have a way to reach her, and even if I work up the courage to reverse my decision to cut off ties with my parents, I don't know if the contact information they had for her will still be up-to-date. Will the version of me in this universe manage to see her again, so I can thank her for the memories that allowed me to hold on this far in life? Before it happens, [how much longer] will I [continue to] feel just as isolated and desperate as the protagonist of "So Long, See You Tomorrow"? Will I, like that protagonist, also turn 42 before I find my way back to what I had lost? In my urge to start over with my life by moving to a distant place where nobody knows me, will I too end up attempting messily to run away from my problems?
Lately I've been feeling a lot of regrets about my life and some of my past choices, mixed with feeling "stuck" and too tired/afraid to rebel against the life I'm living, and mixed with the recognition that I might not be able to hold on unless I make such a change. I saw so much of my inner emotional struggle reflected in this film's story, ideas, and acting. I'm struck by how much my soul needed to hear what "So Long, See You Tomorrow" had to say - and I'm so grateful for this film's hopeful message that change and repair are possible and are worth the effort, even if it takes 27 years and it feels like torment along the way.
I think the one who is being possessive is SM. He is the one who isolated Hwi in a single room on the third floor,…
Haha seongmin was even a bit annoyed (but maybe in a joking way) when he saw hanmin joining jaeseung's chat group. But I think seongmin's behavior is more just confused/all-over-the-place. After all, in his interview for hwi's chat group seongmin says "Though it's conflicting, honestly, I wish hwi can go mingle with other people, and converse with them more..." - which contradicts his earlier reasoning for putting hwi on the third floor. I agree with you that it's a good thing (and a youthful thing) that hwi knows how he feels and isn't afraid to express it! I think jaeseung could benefit from being a bit more assertive and straightforward like hwi, while hwi could benefit from being a bit more thoughtful like jaeseung about how different words/actions may worsen/improve the seongmin's burdens.
What I mean about youngjoon's reaction to seongmin's room assignment choices is that during breakfast in ep 7 (which was before the anonymous questions), when youngjoon realized that seongmin might be interested in hanmin, his reaction in his interview was: "If seongmin assigned hanmin to a double room because he likes him, of course I'm concerned. But hanmin isn't mine yet. I think hanmin should get to know others too." But your reasoning that youngjoon feels more secure because hanmin always gives reassuring signals makes a lot of sense: hwi knows seongmin is really conflicted so he doesn't have the same feeling of security.
1
- Abortion: At the start of episode 2 the main lead supports his best friend as she navigates the process of getting an abortion. The actual abortion procedure is not shown.
- Death of an ex: In the second half of episode 2 there's an off-screen death of a character whom the main lead had dated in episode 1. The drama shows the main lead attending the funeral and grieving.
- Death of a family member: At the start of episode 3 the main lead learns that his mother has cancer. Episodes 3 and 4 show how the relationship between these two characters evolves as the mother's health gradually worsens. Episode 4 ends by showing the two characters sitting and talking outside, and then episode 5 begins by showing the funeral of the main lead's mother.
- Attempted suicide: In the second half of episode 4, the main lead attempts to die by suicide after a messy end to a relationship. He then wakes up in the hospital.
I think a major theme of this drama is the idea that nothing in life lasts forever, and chasing after certain ideals about how we think life "should" be tends to distract us from appreciating and feeling gratitude for what we have in the present. The series depicts how people who matter to us will eventually die, or else they will leave; new people will come into our lives; our relationships with family members will change, and they can change for the better; our friendships will change; where we live will change; etc. I personally felt the film's depiction of how the characters experienced these things resonates a lot with the Buddhist concept of duḥkha (suffering). So you're not going to get a "happy forever" or "sad forever" ending here, it's more like a "living life" ending-which-continues-past-the-ending.
To explain in more detail: the final episode ends with the main lead enjoying fireworks (which is an especially impermanent thing) and happily celebrating friendship together with three of his gay friends, who are all roughly single again at the same time for the first time in a decade. These friends are together and support each other throughout the whole series, so you could see it as a "friendship forever" ending. On the other hand, the main lead's romantic life is left open-ended & bittersweet: the relationship between Yeong and Gyu-ho has ended for a year, but there's also a possibility of restarting it in the future. The main lead writes that his romantic relationships have all ended in failure so far; but the series shows us that life can go on even when things don't go our way, and we can always appreciate what we do have. Visually, this is reflected in how the film ends by showing a flashback memory of the main character being disappointed while watching (together with Gyu-ho) his wish on a lantern fall out of the sky, and then transitioning to the main character in the present-day happily watching fireworks in the sky with his frieinds.
(interestingly, it looks like each pair of episodes had a different director)
(for maximum effect, I strongly recommend watching both episodes in one sitting)
- There are some truly stunning images here.
- The narrative is very much one of vibes, atmosphere, and subtle allusion - like Kim Kyung Mook's "Stateless Things", but even more so.
- This film comes in three versions: one with Korean voiceovers, one with Hebrew voiceovers, and one with English voiceovers; all three versions can be rented together at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thecage2017 . I personally disliked the English voiceover version's voice acting, which really did not work for me. However, there's significantly more narration (from Nick/Samson's perspective) in the English version which makes the story easier to understand; there's a different soundtrack (e.g. in the use of music and Foley sounds); and there's even an extra sequence, a very surreal interlude called "Good Friends" which significantly shifted my understanding of the film. So you're basically getting different films depending on your choice of voiceover language.
- The most striking visual motif I saw was the black-and-white stripes, which also extends to stripes/bars/cages in other forms. I think this is meant to connect to the film's theme of borders and trappedness.
- In general, filming locations in Taiwan were used for Lichtenberg City (inspired by Berlin) while filming locations in South Korea were used for Eskalon (inspired by Ashkelon).
- I was surprised to see a cameo from Jason Tauh (who I first saw in Red Balloon) here.
Returning to the opening quotation after having watched this film, I think this film is trying to critique nationalistic narratives of progress and modernization and the dehumanization of people which accompanies those narratives. There's also an interesting depiction of how people marginalized by society might connect with each other - along those lines, the quiet humanity in the interaction between the fired worker and the mother of the store's owner stands out to me.
- Wei-wei being a poor immigrant who needs a home and a green card to stay in the US as an artist, and Wai-tung being her landlord (power dynamics across class inequalities in the Chinese diaspora, particularly in the context of US immigration policy).
- The mother guilting/manipulating Wai-tung into going through with a big wedding banquet by projecting her disappointment onto Wei-wei
- The wedding attendees carrying out all the wedding-night traditions (e.g. making the couple get naked), and making Wai-tung perform the role of a heterosexual man
- The mother basically guilting Wei-wei into sacrificing the freedom she previously had (and could've maintained with an abortion, which had been her initial intention before talking to the mother) - Wei-wei's social horizon is now circumscribed in the direction of "womb for a man's parents, and future caregiver for their grandchild" (though to be fair, she hasn't given up all of her agency), and she'll probably struggle to maintain her career as a painter without having her parents (who can't come) or her in-laws (who could, but probably won't come) around to help raise the kid
- The mother using Wei-wei to guilt Wai-tung into continuing to perform a lie; Wai-tung is accepted only as far as he can perform to his mother's idealized image of the son she wants to have.
- The father refusing to tell Wai-tung he accepts him, instead manipulating Simon via a gesture of acceptance (the red envelope) conditioned on Simon's complicity in the father's attempt to manipulate Wai-tung to maintain his performance of a heteronormative child. So now Simon has to perform a lie after Wai-tung's coming-out. Now that he has extremely conditional love/acceptance from the parent's generation, he's truly become part of a traditional-values Chinese family lol (yes, I have some personal resentment against my own parents for how they embodied this)
In the last scene of the film, all the relationships are left in a mess because of patriarchy, the younger generation regrets (and suffers from) the sham-marriage plan they had made to please the parents, and everybody's still unhappy except the dad who's totally cool with how everything turned out. I think anger is an emotion the film is (very successfully) constructed to evoke in you, given all the violence it shows being inflicted on everyone in the younger generation by the heteropatriarchal social structures which are regulating their choices, and given the unhappiness of the characters at the end. By the end, each of the three younger adults ends up looking like a not-so-great person as the final consequence of their initial seemingly harmless decision to compromise themselves in order to please the older generation via staging a fake marriage.
Anyways, yeah the mydramalist tags list for this film needs to have sexual assault added.
- I really like that the producers forced people to mix up a bit more for the ep 9 dates
- seungjin sprawled out on the couch like a cat while the others are gathered watching a video of him dancing (relatable)
- the background audio of screams from people on amusement park rides while jaeseung and youngjoon are having their calm conversation (and in particular while jaeseung and youngjoon are comparing days 3 and 4 to a rollercoaster) hahahaha
- I really like how jaeseung talked with youngjoon about the youngjoon/myeongkyun conflict, and what seungjin said to hwi after the hwi/seongmin conversation
- oof not jaeseung assigned to be fifth wheel next episode; I feel skeptical of this change the producers made with the two-mailbox matching system, but I guess it's basically a callback to the way they assigned the first-meeting group dates in ep 1.
- I'm really curious to see how seungjin & hwi's friendship evolves next week...will we get a nearly fully-connected love square (where the only missing line is seungjin/seongmin)? straight dating shows could never
- In https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2011/feature-articles/on-the-uses-and-misuses-of-cinema/, Tsai Ming-liang says: "This is what got me into thinking about what is film, and what is imagery. When the plot is not perfectly and completely constructed, that is, when the main purpose of the movie is not to tell a story and there is no famous star involved, things are different. Under such plain and ordinary circumstances, you suddenly come to realize the true meaning of cinema. And that is exactly what I expect my own work to be. The storyline might be plain, but it is meant to carry the power of imagery, so as to reveal the essence of cinema." I think this attitude describes the key difference between the "animist" camp of filmmaking - where the the main purpose of the film is to tell a story - and the other camps (but maybe especially the "classicist" camp).
- So my main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "animist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in telling a clear story which people connect to on an emotional level. I evaluate the greatness of animist films by how powerful the story is, by how engaging the story and narrative ideas are, and by how much I can emotionally connect with the story as a viewer. I also try to consider concerns of "classicist" and "iconoclast" camps: how aesthetically pleasing is the film, and how honestly does the story reflect real life?
- My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "classicist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in applying/refining existing filmmaking techniques to craft something aesthetically pleasing. I would evaluate the greatness of classicist films by how beautiful they are, and how effectively they use their techniques. I also try to consider concerns of the "animist" and "formalist" camps: how interesting are the film's aesthetic/formal choices, how do those choices connect to the meaning/ideas of the film, and how emotionally resonant is the film's story?
- My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "formalist" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in experimenting and innovating with the form and techniques of filmmaking. I would evaluate the greatness of formalist films by how interesting their formal experimentation is - both when they were released, and today - and by how much it explodes my understanding of what film can be as a medium. I also try to consider concerns of the "classicist" and "iconoclast" camps: how aesthetically pleasing is the film, and how effectively does the film's formal experimentation relate to ideas which the film wants to express about real life, and how honestly do those ideas reflect real life?
- My main criterion for deciding whether a film is in the "iconoclast" camp is whether its primary impact (or most interesting contribution) is in expressing a deeper truth about [art and] life against the accepted artifices/conventions/narratives/pretensions of cinema. I would evaluate the greatness of iconoclast films by how effectively they challenge the traditional relationships between films and life - including for the time of their initial release, but even more for a present-day viewer - and by how interesting and "real" (with respect to real life) their ideas are. I also try to consider concerns of the "animist" and "formalist" camps: how does the film challenge established filmmaking conventions to express something about the deeper truths it intends to present, and how emotionally resonant are those truths?
My classification of films into this taxonomy is meant primarily as a shorthand for the primary mindset which I think is most appropriate to use for experiencing each film and for seeing the greatness of each film.
I've been haunted over the past 25 years by my loss of the person who had been the most important person in my universe - the nanny who had taken care of me in Beijing but remained there when my parents and I left to return to the US. Almost all of my happy memories from that time involved her, and she was the one who tried to comfort and protect me when I was scared of my parents' anger or of my nightmares. Losing her meant losing the one adult I had felt safe with at home, and I've struggled with thoughts of wanting to die ever since then. It's taken ten years for me to realize that my deepest dream is to find her again; to be a healthy, happy, and courageous [queer] self in front of her; and to take care of her as she grows old. But I don't have a way to reach her, and even if I work up the courage to reverse my decision to cut off ties with my parents, I don't know if the contact information they had for her will still be up-to-date. Will the version of me in this universe manage to see her again, so I can thank her for the memories that allowed me to hold on this far in life? Before it happens, [how much longer] will I [continue to] feel just as isolated and desperate as the protagonist of "So Long, See You Tomorrow"? Will I, like that protagonist, also turn 42 before I find my way back to what I had lost? In my urge to start over with my life by moving to a distant place where nobody knows me, will I too end up attempting messily to run away from my problems?
Lately I've been feeling a lot of regrets about my life and some of my past choices, mixed with feeling "stuck" and too tired/afraid to rebel against the life I'm living, and mixed with the recognition that I might not be able to hold on unless I make such a change. I saw so much of my inner emotional struggle reflected in this film's story, ideas, and acting. I'm struck by how much my soul needed to hear what "So Long, See You Tomorrow" had to say - and I'm so grateful for this film's hopeful message that change and repair are possible and are worth the effort, even if it takes 27 years and it feels like torment along the way.
What I mean about youngjoon's reaction to seongmin's room assignment choices is that during breakfast in ep 7 (which was before the anonymous questions), when youngjoon realized that seongmin might be interested in hanmin, his reaction in his interview was: "If seongmin assigned hanmin to a double room because he likes him, of course I'm concerned. But hanmin isn't mine yet. I think hanmin should get to know others too." But your reasoning that youngjoon feels more secure because hanmin always gives reassuring signals makes a lot of sense: hwi knows seongmin is really conflicted so he doesn't have the same feeling of security.