Chihwaseon
(Drunk on Women & Poetry)

Programme Notes

Directed by Im Kwon-taek
Written by Kim Yong-ok and Im Kwon-Taek

"Without a drink and a woman, I can't hold a brush," insists the legendary Korean painter and de facto patriot Ohwon, a dipsomaniacal genius despite his humble origins. (I happen to have the same mantra when it comes to film reviewing.) In Chihwaseon, director Im Kwon-taek's 98th film, Ohwon's life and complicated times unfold in lush natural tableaux, deft brush strokes, and Lear-caliber shouting fits, a portrait of the artist as the last innocent man in tumultuous 19th-century Korea. Literally translating Chihwaseon from its Chinese characters gets you (or rather, my calligraphy-canny dad) the earthier "Drunken Painting Master."

The unlettered, temperamental Ohwon (amazingly embodied by Choi Min-sik) becomes the acknowledged master of his craft, to the envy of more scholarly daubers; regarding words as superfluous (paintings traditionally included poems), he even eschews a signature, spawning a cottage industry of fakes. Devoted to art for art's sake, he bristles at any co-option-by Korea's China-kowtowing royals, by her Japanese-abetted reformers, even by those who would make him rich. (One winces as he destroys reams of what only he can discern as his lesser works.) Summoned to the king's painting chamber to execute a piece for a powerful Chinese general, he balks: "I should paint for a foreigner who invades us?"

An instinctive national pride emerges, 1882 shading into 2003 brinkmanship; "Fire dictates all," a pottery glazer tells Ohwon, musing on fate as they gaze into the hypnotic inferno of the kiln. Few would have guessed that nine months (Chihwaseon opened in Seoul in May 2002, and Im shared best-director laurels at Cannes last year with P.T. Anderson) would have made this film so additionally compelling, a refresher course on Korea's long history of domination by outside forces. Beyond this frisson, the film succeeds as the rehumanizing of a near mythical figure.

Though its dramatic structure is looser than that of Im's sublime, intricately narrated Chunhyang (2000), which retold a beloved folktale via the vertiginous voicings of a p'ansori performer, the director has found in Choi's Ohwon a character equal in stature to his own cinematic conceits. If the soused hero's behaviour scans proto-Pollockian, his art could not be more different: an evocative economy that embeds "10,000 strokes in one." The seamless blend with the eternal natural world is everywhere-birds peppering the sky, a thatched roof's stillicide. His final work-a figure at the prow of a small boat-is heartbreaking, but no less so is his parting gift to a lover: a folding screen intended for immediate sale, showing neither the roots nor the top of a tree, just the branches in all their immediate glory, rendered as big as life.

Painted Fire is a Korean film biography that traces the life of revered painter Jang "Ohwon" Seung-up, who transformed the country's style of art in the 19th century. Except for its limited production values, it bears a resemblance to American film accounts of art superstars such as Vincent Van Gogh (Lust For Life), Jackson Pollock (Pollock), and Frida Kahlo (the recent Frida). It similarly concentrates on the challenges that face major artists on their way to creating forms of expression that defy accepted standards. "Must learning to paint be so painful?" Ohwon asks.

An orphaned beggar at an early age in a highly class-stratified society, Ohwon can barely afford paper and ink to make drawings. But his need to do so leads to his using whatever materials he can scrape up, which in turn leads to early recognition of his above average talent. As depicted here, the local nobility are all art critics as well as collectors, and they are only too ready to take advantage of a new discovery. This attention to his work develops into a patronage for young Ohwon by Kim Byung-moon that provides him a means to pursue his art free from worries about basic necessities.

Ohwon, maturing as a man as well as an artist, becomes widely renowned first for his expert copies of the works of known masters, then as an exponent of readily sold commercial art to order. But even as his fame and dominance in the art market rises, the traditional style of painting becomes more and more inadequate to his aesthetic vision. Instead of simply enjoying success, he sets out to find his "true art." Along that journey, he experiences some rather tormented relationships with women, mostly courtesans (similar to Japanese geishas), and discloses an explosive personality given to destructive outbursts.

During these rants of violence, he destroys the furnishings of his surroundings as well as his work which, though extremely saleable, falls short of his higher vision. Alcohol distracts him from dissatisfaction with his progress, sometimes resulting in a new expression painted while within its grip. Sober, he sometimes discovers something in his stupor-induced images that could help lead him to his goal.

A disciple asks Ohwon why he wants so much to change his art. "People find in my pictures what they expect", he explains. "If I don't change I'll always be their prisoner." Thus, the credo of an artist who struggles throughout his life to produce art beyond the prevailing realism and formality is formed.

Budgetary limitations in making the movie are evident in part by abrupt cuts and somewhat crude storytelling, but writer-director Im Kwon-taek, in this his 95th film, keeps the narrative on its historical track, bumping along in an episodic chain of events. While this jumpiness tends to hold his subject at objective arm's length, scenes of the artist discovering objects and forms in nature are telling instances of an artist's quest, suggesting where the mystery of inspiration comes from.

While there are no performances that rise to memorable, the formality of Korean culture and speech in Kwon-taek's framework seems to diminish the need for acting virtuosity. Lead Choi Min-sik ably develops some sympathy and interest for his struggling artist, but it seems to be accomplished more by the story's constant focus on him than by innate charisma or intimate connection.

Kwon-taek pays attention to his casting of women characters, perhaps taking a lesson on its importance from Chinese directing giants, Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) and Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine). Scenes between Ohwon and his ladies reveal aspects of the man beyond brush and ink, like difficulties with commitment and his tendency toward emotional contradiction, and they include a fairly explicit moment of lovemaking.

Despite its limitations, this film from South Korea is worthy of attention. It's not a country known for making films that appeal to widespread tastes, yet this one attempts to say something about the universality of art and the nature of creative expression, matters of concern to art-lovers everywhere. While paying homage to a national hero, the biography flashes often on the artist's revolutionary brush strokes, where we experience the passion behind the legend.

Now on general release after picking up the Best Director gong at last year's Cannes Film Festival, this is a painstakingly rendered movie which allegedly had the biggest budget of any Korean film to date, but there is a definite feeling that the attention paid to the detail could have been spent on the dramatic elements of the story.

Jang Seung-Up lived from 1833 before he disappeared in 1897. This was during the Josean period of Korean history, a period which seemed to be characterised by a rather peaceful but strictly hierarchical social climate. I say 'seemed' because to an ordinary Westerner the political background is somewhat hazily defined. There is a rebellion towards the end of the film.

Threats of invasion by Japan are also referred to but there is an uneasy and confusing meld of politics and art throughout.
What's even more difficult to take about Chihwaseon is the portrayal of the central character. Jang Seung-Up was a humble child prodigy who worked in the service of others until his great talent made him popular with the higher echelons of society, including the king. But, as the English translation of the title implies, he was mainly creatively inspired by alcohol and sex. Thus the film is peppered with examples of his rather boorish and uncomfortable behaviour.

For one in love with nature and art, with both brought to the screen in breathtaking beauty, this movie offers the thrill of what great cinema is all about. This is the story of the development of a Korean artist in the 19th century, from his beggarly beginnings to great renown in his country. It's a very complex and often agonizing journey as this natural artistic genius struggles to create art for which he has enormous talent, but which is restricted by tradition and government control. The film spares us nothing...his heavy drinking, his sexual encounters, his rages...withal it's the underlying "blessed unrest" of the artist that comes through. We're given the fruits of his creativity as well as awe-inspiring images of nature from which the work itself derives. This marriage of art and nature...man and his need to give expression to his talents is powerfully portrayed by the actors, the director...by all those responsible for this exquisite and uncompromising film.

Im Kwon-taek jointly won the director's prize with Paul Thomas Anderson at Cannes last year with this movie, a fictionalised biopic of the Korean artist Jang Seung-up whose 19th-century life unfolds alongside his country's domestic upheavals and fraught relations with China and Japan.

This film, beautifully shot and paced, is exhilaratingly confident, combining a miniaturist's concern for detail with a storyteller's assurance with grand historical narrative. With the help of Jung Il-sung's cinematography and Choi Min-sik's central performance, the director has some lovely landscapes to show us, and a thoroughly involving story to tell.

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