[HanCinema's Film Review] "Welcome - 2014"

Hye-sook (played by Shim Hye-jin) manages a fairly unremarkable restaurant in Seoul, and resists efforts to go back to her hometown of Andong for even the shortest stretch of time. Why? Well...there isn't a good reason really. You ever made one of those decisions in life that seemed like a smart idea at the time, but hasn't really seemed to pan out since then? But at the same time life isn't so terrible that you want to swallow your pride and admit you were wrong? That's where Hye-sook is.

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It's honestly not much of a conflict. But then, "Welcome - 2014" isn't really about a traditional narrative of conflict and resolution so much as it is a movie about trying to avoid that stuff, because in real life conflict is a huge pain. While Hye-sook puts up plenty of resistance to the idea of coming back to live in Andong, childhood friend Gi-joo (played by Jeon No-min) is much more resigned to his fate.

And to be perfectly clear, this is a good thing. "Welcome - 2014" is like the inverted version of one of those stories about leaving home and becoming independent. There's not really a whole lot of depth to those stories, even though there's a very pretentious attitude at play of how this is totally how everyone's supposed to grow up. Then in this movie we have Taek-gyoo (played by Kwon Jae-won), who never left home and yet is clearly far more happy and secure in his life than either of the other two main characters.

It's hard to blame him considering how beautiful Andong is. I can't quite recall the last time I saw such disinterested camerawork. The shooting isn't lazy or anything- it's just that director Lee Dong-sam has a lot of confidence in the ability of the Andong countryside to simply sell itself. There's a casual attitude here that's really quite refreshing- this is the Andong that the locals see, when they just want to take a break and look at something pretty. This is, for the most part, not a luxury that exists to people in Seoul.

"Welcome - 2014" is ultimately a film about the dreams of the later part of life, when we get too old to get too pretentious and settling down just starts to seem like the more natural choice- I don't mean that in the literal terms of marriage. Note that all the main characters have been married at least once. Settling down in this context rather means just relaxing and not stressing out. Ever been in a bad marriage? Those happen because the motivations have nothing to do with long term goals, a fact this film aptly recognizes.

Very little about this film is remarkable, which I think might be why it manages to attain such an apparently mystical quality. When a genuine obstacle finally pops up later on, the interruption is an unwelcome one that is surprisingly resolved without having to resort to any kind of serious emotional or physical violence. Fate, it would seem, is just inevitably receiving in kind whatever you're so determined to hand out to other people. I don't know whether there's really anything much to this philosophy, but for a couple of hours, at least, "Welcome - 2014" did a pretty decent job persuading me.

This review was written by William Schwartz as a part of HanCinema's PiFan (Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival) coverage.

"Welcome - 2014" is directed by Lee Dong-sam and features Shim Hye-jin, Jeon No-min, Kwon Jae-won and Lee Joo-sil.