[HanCinema's Film Review] "Winter Garden"

The interviews and discussions in "Winter Garden" don't have much in the way of depth. This is a documentary about transnational adoption, and yet it didn't really do much to educate me about what's involved in the specific process, or what common unifying thread connects all Korean adoptees in a global web. We are, for the most part, just watching several interviews about adoption, interspersed with long walks.

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There's a very subtle yet almost casual kind of exoticism in this camera work. The entirity of the film is just Lee Ji-hyeon-I using her handheld camera, following people around, and talking to them. But along the way we are treated to these extended sidelong glances of France and South Korea. We can, every so often, see a famous landmark in the background. For the most part, though, this is just life of people in these countries walking and talking and meeting with each other.

As a result the film comes off as well, a home movie would probably be the best description. But it's a very good home movie. Because Lee Ji-hyeon-I is so focused on telling us about the adoption stories, the other details slip through very gracefully. When I noticed a particularly compelling piece of background, it was because that background was personally speaking to me- not because Lee Ji-hyeon-I put in an obvious effort to make me notice it.

The attitude "Winter Garden" takes toward life itself is similarly well treated. Yes, Cecile is an artist, she is French and she is also (in a somewhat roundabout way) Korean. She doesn't represent anything greater than that- Cecile is just a person, as are the other people who we see on camera. Transnational adoption is such a big touchstone issue that it feels way too often like people are intent on making some kind of political statement more than they are just talking about what that feeling is like.

So it's a strange feeling watching "Winter Garden", a movie where other artistic documents concerning transnational adoption are explicitly discussed. It's just a matter of personal interest in everyday life. As a tourist piece, the documentary is surprisingly compelling. There's a lot of depth in the lives we see, and in the background scenery that makes both France and South Korea feel like places worth visiting. There are people there with their own lives, profoundly influenced by the environment, who can sit down for a spell and just ruminate casually about how it is they came here.

In the end, though, "Winter Garden" itself is not actually making much of a statement of its own, which is problematic insofar as treating it as a real film. The content is breezy background noise, beautiful picture framed by the occasional chat between people about what it feels to just be alive in this way. This is not a particularly compelling film, but I very much got the impression that it's not trying to be one anyway. I suppose there's some compliment to be made for that.

Review by William Schwartz

"Winter Garden" is directed by Lee Ji-hyeon-I