"What do you think love is?". Pavan is a film that offers its own answer to a question with no definitive response, using the face of actor Moon Sang Min, who has firmly become the emblem of the next generation of youth, as that answer.
The film Pavan, released on Netflix on the 20th (director Lee Jong Pil, produced by The Lamp, co-produced by Plus M Entertainment), is a film about three people who had closed the doors of their hearts to life and who become lights for one another as they confront life and love. Based on Park Min Gyu's novel Pavane for a Dead Princess, the film was adapted with care by director Lee Jong Pil—who received praise for Samjin Company English Class and Runaway—going so far as to hand-copy the original in his devotion to the project. Initially intended for theatrical release, it is meeting audiences via Netflix as an OTT release.
Like the original novel, which took its title from French composer Maurice Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess, the film Pavan unfolds its story while maintaining a slow and solemn atmosphere akin to the Western classical pavane. The protagonists are Kyung Rok (Moon Sang Min), a young man who grew up feeling emotional deprivation amid the absence of a father who left after abandoning his mother in childhood; Johan (Byun Yo-Han), who became close to Kyung Rok while they worked parking jobs at a department store; and Mi Jeong (Ko A Sung), a woman who fell in love after meeting in a corner of the parking lot.
Mi Jeong, who is in the deepest, darkest part of the parking lot, is a "dinosaur." Her plain appearance and her unforgettable, intense presence have made everyone brand her as a "dinosaur," as if she were a monster. But she was different to Kyung Rok. What began as curiosity turned into pity, and that pity developed into a pure interest that Kyung Rok expressed as simple kindness. Even though Johan warned that premature pity that cannot last will only leave wounds, Kyung Rok chose to move straight toward Mi Jeong.
Indeed, Mi Jeong is the person who makes Kyung Rok exist as he is. Although Kyung Rok has a handsome appearance, he has lost expressions—perhaps because of a lack of paternal love—and Mi Jeong responds by treating him without artifice, only cautious about the reasons for kindness. As unadorned as her appearance, with nothing to hide and without extravagant stimuli, her comforting presence seems to embrace even the deep darkness of the parking lot, bringing light into Kyung Rok's world, which he had known only as darkness. Mi Jeong, who had existed quietly alone even in the most shadowed parking spots behind the glamorous department store, also becomes someone who can shine on her own when she faces Kyung Rok.
Behind the department store, where beautiful looks, a slim figure, and flashy credentials are treated as prerequisites for love, it is in fact the youth who can see the inner person who find love growing. Though it feels like a fantasy, by acknowledging and expressing their own deficiencies and accepting the other's shortcomings, they show a maturity that reveals what true love is.
Watching Pavan, which speaks of love slowly, solemnly and respectfully, one can see director Lee Jong Pil's respectful anguish and his own answer—he even hand-copied the source material—as expressed in the film. What he thinks love is ultimately is not light or darkness alone but harmony and coexistence: showing one's light and one's darkness as they are and being able to exist before someone. Kyung Rok and Mi Jeong sometimes shine together when they are as they are even in the dark, but at times they deny each other or try to dress up and hide themselves and fall out of step. The film's expressions, which are even kinder than the novel that emphasized emptiness, leave a more direct and different emotional resonance.
Above all, Moon Sang Min, who embodies Kyung Rok, is the highlight of Pavan. He wiped away the assured 'prince-like' image from dramas such as Under the Queen's Umbrella and To My Beloved Thief and the bold schoolboy in After School Activities War. With his handsome face and an inexplicable lack that makes you want to soothe him, comfortable familiarity with darkness more than light, and a natural vitality that can be crumpled and then smoothed out, Moon Sang Min shows a youthful face never seen before through Pavan.
After Samjin Company English Class, Ko A Sung met director Lee Jong Pil again and completed Mi Jeong with performances you can trust. Because it is Ko A Sung, Mi Jeong is not unattractive without pretense; she convinces us she is a lively woman and that Kyung Rok's fluttering was not misplaced. Byun Yo-Han, who can be playful and teasing, also convincingly portrays Johan's brooding depth, as if carrying an indelible wound. Pavan makes viewers look back and quietly hope there are youths who fall in love like this in real life, in department stores or other shopping mall parking lots.
Rated 15 and older, running time 113 minutes.
[Photo] Provided by Netflix.
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