Screenings index

Die Koreanische Hochzeitstruhe

The Korean Wedding Chest

dir. Ulrike Ottinger / Germany 2009 / 82’

subtitles: Polish and English

Documentaries / essays City of Borders, Die Koreanische Hochzeitstruhe, Eldorado - Sonntags Abschied, FILM IST. a Girl and a Gun, Gangster Girls, In Comparison, Must Read After My Death, Sleep Furiously, Sweetgrass, The Children of Wehrmacht, The Count and the Comarade, The Sound of Insects – Record of a Mummy Section index

Cast

Kim KeumHwa, Boseong, Kim-Min-Ja, Ahn Baek-Seung, Yun Mink-Yung, Yoo Hee-Jong, Lee Hyaek-Young, Yang Gil-Seung

Film description

A remarkable documentary depicting Korean wedding customs and rituals. With this piece on ceremonial customs of the inhabitants of South Korea, we have a glimpse of the world of the East, of a culture marrying tradition with modernity in a fascinating way, full of colour, symbols, oriental legends and myths, but also traces of influences left by the country's recent history and contact with the West. The plot is constructed around the wedding chest of the film's title, filled with symbolic and magical objects. Urlike Ottinger explains: When a wedding chest opens, a whole world opens. A wedding chest is more than a archive box. It is something very much alive.

The Korean Wedding Chest seduces with its beautiful images which are realistic and poetic at a time, shown analytically, with a distance, but paradoxically entering the depths of the "Korean spirit" with a subtle sense of humour. The engaged couple we are watching becomes a role model or archetype and the presented rituals confirm that the eternal pattern of enchanting reality annexes the present time, is slightly modified by it, but restored and repeated in each generation.

Paulina Sieniuć