The dire state of the economy has dominated the recent
presidential election. Many of us have found ourselves on hard times, perhaps
victims of foreclosures or lost in a sea of job-market doldrums. In such a
state, it’s easy to find our selves in the shoes of the protagonist of
“Castaway on the Moon.”
Kim Seung-geun (Jung Jae-young) is a man on the edge.
Literally. As the 2009 South Korean film opens Seung-geun stands on the edge of
a bridge overlooking the Han River. He places a final call to one of his
creditors and gets the clarification he needs. His $75,000 loan has now turned
into a $210,000 debt. He’s lost his job and his girlfriend. Seung-geun has
nothing left to live for. So he throws himself from the bridge into the river
beneath him.
Imagine his surprise when he finds himself washed up on
the shore of a small island in the middle of the river. He is still within
sight of the city, in fact it’s really just a short swim away. However
Seung-geun’s failures in life include a failure to ever learn to swim. He’s
stranded on a trash strewn preserve island. The freeway crosses over his
“deserted island” but there’s no way for him to scale the concrete pylons and
climb away to the safety of the civilized world he so badly tried to escape
forever.
What follows is not the standard castaway film. Sprinkled
with natural comic elements and an upbeat contemporary jazzy score, we see the
story of Kim Seung-geun as a man ready to throw it all away redeemed by a
sudden new-found love of isolation. His sand-scrawled plea “Help” changes to
“Hello” as Seung-geun finds his desperate situation becoming more peaceful and
preferred to the credit-card filled rat-race of modern living.
Kim Seung-geun is not alone in his isolation however.
About the third of the way through the film we are introduced to a different
kind of castaway. Kim Jung-yeon (Jung
Ryeo-won) is a young woman shut away in a room of her parent’s home. She fears
the outside world and masquerades as multiple different people through fake
personae on the internet. She follows a strict ritual on a daily basis,
including 10,000 steps on her pedometer each day and a strictly regimented
calorie diet. The curtains in her trash cluttered room only open at night when
she spies through the telephoto lens of her camera to pursue her “hobby:”
photos of the moon.
From her sheltered and secure cave-like room Jung-yeon
sees Seung-geun’s message on the beach through her telephoto lens. She thinks
he’s an alien come to learn about the human race. In her defense, Seung-geun’s
antics seem extraterrestrial enough, especially when viewed from such a
distance through the lens of a camera.
What follows is the most peculiar, charming and romantic
pen-pal love affair I’ve ever seen put to film. I am ashamed to admit I feel
I’ve already given away too much of this film. I didn’t have a clue what I was
getting into when I first selected it from the Netflix instant queue. It was a
recommendation from my daughter and with few exceptions I find her opinion is
one I can trust. At least when it comes to films.
The introduction of the female Kim – as she’s listed in
the credits – was an entirely unexpected turn in the not-so-standard castaway
film. One man’s comic struggles for survival became the story of two unlikely
souls meeting in the most unusual of ways.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s
2001 “Amelie”- one of my all-time favorite films. “Castaway on the Moon” has
just the right amount of fantastic creativity, heart and charm as “Amelie.” The
films share enough quirky genetics to be distant cousins. However where the
French film seems to rely heavily on the quirk and dream-painted Parisian cityscapes,
“Castaway” resides mostly in the here and now. The South Korean film has an
almost more meaningful gravitas due largely to the sympathetic and near tragic
nature of its two leads.
If your situation is anything like Kim Seung-geun’s at
the start of this film I strongly recommend catching this delightful, inspiring
and charming feature. Like the “male Kim” of this story, you may just find
there is always something to live for even if that something comes from the
most unsuspected of places in the most unlikely of times.
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Four and a half out of 5 Motorcycle helmets.
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Castaway on the Moon (2009)
Director: Hey-jun Lee
Starring: Jung Jae-young and Jung Ryeo-won
Not Rated
Runtime: 116 minutes
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