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SOULMATES

Today's film was the Korean

Wonangsori / Old Partner (2008)

I am wary of animal pictures and even more so about a bonding between man and beast. I know that somewhere in it there is going to be sadness or, worse, sentimentality.

There is not a speck of that in this film, sentimentality, I mean. There is an almost documentary kind of look at an old man and his ox who have been together for 40 years. The man is the boss. The beast is for burden. It is part of the bargain.

The film is also also about aging, modernization, history, nature, and marriage.

And in each category, contrasts.

The ox and man have lived and worked together so long that their relationship is palpable. The comparisons obvious. Both are old. Both are primitives. Both are dying.

Next to the peasant farm, we see a modern operation. Mechanization, pesticides, all of it.

The old man clings to his old ways.

There is a history lesson here as well, more for Koreans, I suppose. It is their culture after all. But the story is universal as well. The ox and the man are inside us. The primitive struggle between animal and the elements is inside all of us.

Nature. Ongoing. Unchanging. Momentum. Life. Death. This film is immersed in nature and its dominion. Plants, insects.

The marriage between the ox and the man is in parallel with the marriage between man and wife. An old harridan who bitches and moans throughout the entire film. A pain in the ass. A counterpoint to the acceptance and flow of the man and his animal friend.

This is a beautiful film.

If you love animals it will have special meaning.

I could feel the bond between my Booker and me as I watched the man and his ox.

There is sadness in this because we are near the end. But so am I. I can also feel, behind the sadness, the sweetness of life and relationship.

Wow. I got a fuck lot more out of this film than I thought.

I would not mind watching it again. Not at all.

I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films