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A couple who have lived together for 76 years faces the last moment of their marriage.
It is easy to believe that true love isn’t real. It is equally tempting to think that what we call “true love” is merely an invention produced by the cross section of romanticism and consumerism, created by Hallmark to sell Valentine’s Day cards or by Hollywood to make you believe that you’ll eventually find “the one” if you’re as patient as Ted Mosby. Those thoughts may very well be correct. But the Korean independent documentary “My Love, Don’t Cross That River,” will force you to confront a palpable iteration of love, built not only on innate passion, but also a lifetime’s worth of hard work and sacrifice.
“My Love” is the story an elderly couple living in rural South Korea. The husband, Jo Byeong-man, is ninety-eight years old, and his wife, Kang Kye-yeol, is eighty-nine. The documentary unfolds through their words, deeds, and interactions with others around them. Byeon-man is a doting husband who sings for his wife and lives to spend time with his two dogs. Kye-yeol is the rock of both her immediate and extended family, caring for her nonagenarian husband. They dress in ornate, traditional Korean outfits – many have raised suspicions about filmmaker involvement here, suggesting that director Jin Mo-young may have not-so-subtly influenced the actions of his subjects. Regardless, even when taken with a healthy grain of salt, it is clear that “My Love” portrays a couple that still cares deeply about one another, with a love that remains fresh even after three-quarters of a century spent married.
The film, clearly heavily edited, feels like a series of chronological vignettes in the life of two relatively ordinary, elderly Koreans. Despite the cultural chasm, Western viewers will surely have an easy time relating to this portrayal of the idiosyncrasies of family life. “My Love,” however, is almost like two separate films: the first half a look into the happy life of two simple, rural Koreans, and the second half the jarring reality of Byeon-man’s declining health. At first, a cough – and then all at once, he is unable to get out of bed. But this is what gives the documentary its stark power: not a soul watching will doubt even for a moment the unending despair of Kyo-yeol as she watches the man she has spent her long and fruitful life with disintegrate before her eyes.
“My Love” is taking South Korea by storm, and as it makes its way to foreign markets, it is not hard to imagine many others being drawn to its magnetic simplicity. Behind the folksy charm, old-fashioned outfits, and delectable Korean home cooking, there is an idea: that two people joined together become something greater than they were before. Chuck Palahniuk once wrote, “The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.” It is this belief – that an ethereal concept like love can endure even beyond the grave – which drives the film forward. Death isn’t escapable, as “My Love” makes clear over and over again. Watching the couple bury a beloved dog or seeing Kyeo-yeol ceremonially burn long-johns so that six of her long-deceased infant children can wear them in the afterlife are simply appetizers for the entree of emotional devastation that comes when Byeon-man finally succumbs to his illness. What makes it all palatable, however, is the idea that love given in life is more powerful than death.
In watching the film, viewers will have to decide for themselves how much is real and how much is the product of director intervention. One thing that is undeniably real, however, is the love that the two subjects of the film share. That alone makes it worth watching. And perhaps, you’ll leave with the same sense I did: that true love isn’t easy, or cheap, or even common, but that it can be found through a lifetime’s worth of fulfilling work and gratitude.
Opens in NYC June 17th and LA June 24th with a further regional expansion to follow
