Jane(2017)

 

What is the best attitude for living a good life? How can I live well? I’ve thought life is boring and I think that misfortune starts from the beginning of life and it goes on forever. Happiness is like a cherry that barely falls from the tree. We don’t have any choice except just waiting all day for a momentary sweetness given by cherry. So, to throw question again, what is your stance of life? How have you lived? I have my own answer about this question. But if I try to speak up my thought, I put myself on skeptical territory because I doubt feasibility of my answer. Then Jane said in the trailer. “Anyway, that’s why we live together.” I expected that the film will show the answer that I’ve thought in clear image. Of course, I bought the ticket because of the line she said, and then, I fall in blue quickly.

 

This movie mixed up the timeline to make hard to distinguish between fact and imagination. After the movie, audience might try to follow the timeline of movie, but it would be difficult because the narrative is tangled each other. Which scene is a Sohyun’s dream? What is the reality that she experienced? This movie gives confusion to audience intentionally. But we don’t have to either set each scene in order or distinguish the reality from massive imagination. Dream always goes with reality. It’s reconstituted with one’s reality and desire. So it could not be classified clearly.

 

 

 

Then what is the truth within the massive unreality? I think the only reliable fact is Sohyun’s life is going on anyway. From the movie, Sohyun tells Jane that sometimes a non-existent baby toe tickles like it’s there. There are lots of ways to know that the body exists. If you can see, seeing is the fastest and clear way to feel your body. Some saying backs this opinion up: ‘Don’t trust before you see it.’ However, some people couldn’t see their body, and even some body parts are not seen. How can we realize the body’s existence? I think it’s possible through the pain. Pain is the most powerful evidence than sight. Presence of hands and feet is greater when each part suffer from pain. Even the case of invisible body parts, we can feel its presence. People usually don’t care where their stomach is, but they grab the stomach when it has pain. Back to the movie, Sohyun would feel the presence of her toe only when it tickles. She could realize its absence only when she touched her toe. Person who has a toe would not be able to sympathize the sense of loss before they lost it. Thus, Sohyun has no other way but to make some imagination to forget about a feeling of loss that she has felt for her entire life.

 

 

 

Sohyun wants to belong to somewhere or some group of her age. Her desire is so huge and desperate, but it is never revealed. It is burning only inside her. Her dark eyes seem like blackhole while I’m seeing her eyes. Like blackhole, she never spits out her own alienation and depression, just internalize all kinds of grief. She doesn’t know the way to spit it out. So it’s natural that Sohyun comes to like Jisoo as a friend.

 

Jisoo has a desire about living. She has a dream to live with her younger sister in future. She is the most realistic character among the people in this movie. Her purpose is present and clear. So audience could imagine Jisoo’s future life easily because the character shows her strong desire to live. For that reason, the tragedy happened to Jisoo evokes massive impact. The way to show her tragedy seems mild but it impose a heavy despair to audience. She risks her life for her own life, but she failed and was murdered. Jisoo’s death is tragedy to Sohyun as well, even she had to join in the crime; Sohyun buried Jisoo with boys who had killed her. Sohyun feels guilty as she descends the mountain. Although that was not by her will, it was caused by anxiety that she might be alone.

 

 

 

Jane seems like a person who only lives in Sohyun’s dream. Some points make her as unrealistic person. Movie shows a present of Jane, rather than focusing on her past. Plus, she is always with Sohyun in her community to make her not alone anymore. Of course, Jane also has struggled with her own problem. She tried to bear her grief with her friends in community. Sohyun would trust her and follow her. Jane was the first person who sincerely listened to Sohyun’s words. However, in the end, Jane committed suicide.

 

We all live in reality but not in dream. So, back to the first question, how can I live well? What is the right way to live? We should be in charge of what we did. No one can escape or avoid from the life. People do not live by dream alone. The dream will end inevitably. Sohyun keeps dreaming to live together, but it has gone because of two deaths, Jisoo and Jane. But it doesn’t mean that we should live alone. I don’t think that this movie only talks about despair. The life starts from where the dream ended. Think about the scene that Sohyun runs to the river and faces it. The life just goes on like a river, neither stops nor rewinds. Sohyun would decide stance of her own life when Jisoo’s sister gives caramel to her. She will meet someone and lose someone. Guilty and forgiveness will be with her for the rest of her life, happiness and grief will be there too. Nevertheless, she has to go with her life, and stands in front of life, and goes through it.