Chihwaseon

We watched a Korean movie called Chihwaseon (Painted Fire) on the Thursday of last week. The movie is about the life of a painter called Jang Seung-Up. Born in poverty he is noticed by a noble man as a child. He mentors him and makes sure he gets the training an aspiring artist gets. But the need of his to gain acceptance while at the same time not conforming to what the artists think "art" forms the crux of the story.

This inner conflict is bought out quite excellently in one scene. The artist has just finished copying a painting by a Chinese artist. His mentor and some of his friends who are connoisseurs of art (or at least think of themselves that way) are at a loss to differentiate between the original and the fake. But there is a difference, the fake has an extra sparrow in the painting. "Alone and desolate", isolated and then they cut to a close up of the artists face which reflects precisely the same emotions. (We would have rather preferred not to have the close up since we figured that the point was made). Almost the whole movie is spent in the artist trying to re-concile himself between being popularly accepted and to follow his own heart and develop an individual style of his own. And it is this that makes the artist go on drunken binges and shout at the top of his voice from a roof top. We would recommend that you not miss this scene when you watch the movie.



Also woven very well into the script are the loves of his life. From the perennially ill younger sister of his mentor, to shall we say "the-ladies-of-the-night" and a flute player as well. If you are a romantic you would love the scene where he paints a grand screen for his lady love #2 when on the verge of breaking up with him she asks him for a painting that will have good market value.

With the artist's mentor being one of the prime movers behind the reformists, we are also given an insight into the political upheavals happening in Korea in the latter half of the 19th century.

If you are a painter, a writer or even a techie who has had to face the sort of questions and make the choices that Jang Seung-Up had to then you will be able to truly appreciate the movie.

(What is the question for a techie you might ask, Well to choose between what you believe in and what your manager believes in ???)

(Images Courtesy : Cinemania and koreanfilm.org)