One look at Freddie shows that it doesn’t look like she had a hard time adjusting to life in France. She's well off. Her adoptive parents loved her. And she could be anyone's friend with her charisma and appeal. In fact, she quickly befriends Tena (Guka Han), a shy hotel worker who eventually becomes her translator and confidante. For sure, if Freddie wants something, she can easily get it.
Freddie’s detour to Seoul is both nonsensical and unexpected. She’s never really been interested in the culture, as evident by her neglecting their customs. She doesn’t speak Korean and has no intention to sightsee or learn about its history. Until someone suggests she look for her parents. Near the place she’s staying is a popular adoption center, she could start there. Even though she is reluctant, her headstrong personality and curiosity get the best of her, leading her to make the decision that will change her life forever.
"Return to Seoul" premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is currently part of the Asian Next Wave Competition at the 10th QCinema International Film Festival. It is also Cambodia’s entry for the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.
Director Davy Chou stumbled into this story similar to the way Freddie landed in Korea—purely unexpected. The story is closely similar to the experience of a French-Korean friend, who met her family during one of their trips to South Korea. It’s a strikingly emotional reunion filled with anger, regret, joy, and sadness.
Intercountry adoption in South Korea emerged in a humanitarian crisis following the Korean War. Over the last six decades, it has displaced over 200,000 children. Even after those years, the country is still haunted by the past. And Freddie is that supposed ghost to the country and to the parents that jettisoned her to another land.
However, that doesn’t remove the fact that Freddie is also the victim of a system shrouded in ethical controversies. Freddie grows frustrated and lonely in a country that’s supposed to be her home. People approached her with questions about her ethnicity, unobtrusively seeing her as an outsider. She said at one point that both Korea and France seem to treat her as an outcast, and it infuriates her. The lack of a sense of belonging and her inability to come to terms with her identity send her through a series of transformations punctuated by self-destructive decisions.
After a tense first hour, it jumps ahead a few years. It wobbles the balance of the film a little bit, but somehow it feels inevitable to do a time jump. Now older, Freddie is a completely different person, defined by her gothic look and DP Thomas Favel's tight framing and dark lighting. She's still magnetic, but the deep-seated trauma feels more real than before.
It will skip ahead again, and this time to a mature Freddie. But it starts to wonder if there’s anything else the narrative needs to do or if there’s even a resolve to her feeling of neglect. At this point, it seems like Freddie needs to internalize a way to call a truce with herself, and more explanations, reinventions, and attempts to make sense of what's going on are probably not the antidote to her pain and suffering. Maybe it is not her destiny to be Korean or French after all. Maybe a rootless life isn’t so bad. And maybe the place we should call home has been inside us all along.
Davy Chou’s "Return to Seoul" packs a lot of punch, and it really hits the mark, especially in dramatic moments. Furthermore, Ji-Min Park is deserving of all praise and recognition. Her performance would make one doubt if she’s really a first-time actress. Obviously, she’s one of the lucky people who never experienced Freddie's dilemma, but she holds on to the trauma as if it were her own. It’s challenging to portray a character with a lot of emotional baggage to carry. Ji-Min has to carry around strong sentiments of inhibited resentment while maintaining a certain level of impassivity. It’s the nuances and the consistency of Ji-Min Park that definitely draw the viewers into Freddie’s orbit and conclusively make them care.
In essence, it’s not a surprise if "Return to Seoul" wins more awards. It showcases a story unlike any other and a performance that would rival any actress or actor in contention this year. It is easily one of the year's best films.
4.5/5
