Grandmother’s Flower

“So you want to find out what happened? It’s useless to know. Talking about it will just make things worse. Even if you dig, you won’t find out anything from our village.”—Pungdong resident

At the behest of his mother, Mun Jeong-hyun hesitantly embarks on making a documentary for and about his ailing grandmother, Soon-rae, a sort of family movie/memento to complete before she passes away. What he gets, however, is much more than he bargained for. In Grandmother’s Flower, Mun takes viewers into a labyrinthine tale that confronts issues of regional discrimination, colonial oppression and personal tragedy.

To better grasp his grandmother’s life, Mun revisits her hometown in South Jeollo Province, a town divided into three villages: Sangdae, the upper village; Jungdae, home of his grandmother, and Pungdong, or “Hadae,” an outdated term used to denote the “lower village.” Mun decides to interview residents in both Jungdae and Pungdong and discovers mutual distrust and contempt among the neighboring villages. As the interviews progress, grandmother Soon-rae emerges as a key figure in a story that includes a neurotic granduncle traumatized by a run-in with the police, a maternal granduncle allegedly shot by a close acquaintance, and uncles displaced in Japan who harbor resentment for a cold-hearted communist father.

Through Mun’s meticulous investigation, it becomes painfully clear that victimization exists on various levels, and that the repercussions of Japanese occupation and the Korean War continue to this day. Formerly titled Tear Drops, the film won Best Korean Documentary Award at the Pusan International Film Festival.